a) when AGW alarmists see record heat waves, it's because of global warming. when they see record cold snaps, it's because of global warming. then they move to "climate change" (which, always does, so that's like saying "I'm right as long as something that always happens keeps happening"), and then the record does something silly like exhibit a zero trend for 16 years.
b) AGW isn't falsifiable because any observation of global average CO2 and global average temperature can be explained away with an ad hoc special pleading. If the melting glaciers *prove* AGW, but advancing glaciers don't *refute* it, then you've simply done a "heads I win, tails you lose".
Continental drift *is* falsifiable -> find a seam of rock stretching from south america to africa that is all of exactly the same age (given that our current hypothesis of continental drift depends on the mid atlantic creating new rock as those two continents drifted apart).
Or, more to the point, what observations do you believe would falsify the novel idea that human CO2 emissions are going to cause catastrophic global climate change?
Ah, sorry Mr. Newberry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stirling_Newberry), I simply cannot hope to compete with someone willing to sacrifice their anonymity on slashdot - it's just too dangerous for me, but congratulations for your courage!
That all being said, it sounds like you're someone who has definitely gotten some motivated reasoning in order to ignore the evidence from the other side:)
what you cannot do is to say things which are factually wrong and expect to not be called on it.
Ah, I understand your clarification. Consider yourself called on it:)
Can you explain (in detail) why CO2 and methane being trace gases would make them less likely to affect climate?
Because in comparison to the other greenhouse gases (not to mention other climate driving variables), they simply cannot compete. Of course for both methane and CO2, the problem is that we don't simply have static sources and sinks -> they all interplay in such a complex manner, one cannot simply assert that a single variable drives the entire complex equation.
I said no such thing. I said that denialists spread misinformation and lies
And that's *exactly* what someone who has used motivated reasoning to come to their position would say about the other side.
they are scaremongers: included in their lies is the assertion that a worldwide cabal of scientists have been colluding for 150 years in order to establish a new world order.
Ah, interesting - I hadn't thought of that one. It's certainly a neat parallel to the scaremongering of alarmists, gives it a nice symmetry I suppose:)
[Warmist] climatologists are modern day astrologers who can explain every single event ever observed, and ever to be observed with their pet hypothesis. Once you have a non-falsifiable hypothesis that asserts it is confirmed when it is both hot and cold and wet and dry, if people aren't discerning enough to realize you're playing the game of "heads I win, tails you lose", they can easily be fooled by the flimflam of people in lab coats. Heck, fake psychics use this all the time, maximizing their "hits" and minimizing their "misses", the way AGW proponents wave away refuting lines of data, but trumpet "confirming" ones.
On the other hand, for the most part, your physicists, astronomers, biologists, geologists and other *actual* scientists start with a falsifiable hypothesis, and then look for any possible falsifications a hard as they possibly can. Honestly, how many AGW proponents have actually tried to *look* for refuting data of their hypotheses? How hard did Michael Mann ever look at what possible flaws his hockey stick could have had?
Motivated reasoning is an excellent explanation for why otherwise rational atheists can develop a brand new Church of Global Warming.
You could just stop listening to the eco-activists until they start the first step of the scientific method and make clear their necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Maybe you're not a yankee, but actually, we do have this thing called the 1st amendment that means that we can *say* whatever we like.
As for "lies, misinformation and scaremongering", wouldn't that be what people who are asserting that the world is going to come to a terrible end because of human emissions of a trace gas measured in parts per million? I mean, look, if you want to call AGW skeptics liars, and misinformers, I can understand your motivated reasoning to, and you might even be able to make a cogent case for it, but scaremongering? Scaremongering? If anything, skeptics are *refuting* the "imminent doom unless you repent" cries of alarmists.
"But second, that tack is unlikely to get anywhere with the 17 percent or so of highly-engaged Americans who reject the idea of a *naturally* warming planet, and are highly motivated to disregard anything that says otherwise."
There, fixed. Both sides apparently have highly motivated reasoning going on, no reason you can't turn the sentence around the other way.
I'd suggest the way to discern between the motivated reasoning and the scientific truth requires ye good old falsifiable hypothesis statement as per Karl Popper.
A major refinement now is it? That's odd, you said it was step one earlier.
I'm sorry, perhaps you didn't understand me - since the major refinement of Popper's falsifiability qualification to discern between science and pseudo-science, it is *step one* of the scientific method. Perhaps pre-Popper, people didn't realize that it was necessary, but it was still *step one*.
Popper's ideas are not a standard part of the scientific method.
They're more than standard, they're *required*. Any science done before Popper, that did not have a falsifiable hypothesis statement, was just as unscientific as any "science" done today without falsifiability.
Astrology was *always* not scientific - Popper merely put the requirement of falsifiability into clearly statement. His work was at its core one of discovery - the discovery of something that was always true.
Your snake oil salesman appearance seems quite close to religion.
Wait, wait, you want me to believe in something that you will insist is true no matter what observations we can possibly make, but *I'm* the snake oil salesman?
Really?:)
I'm the skeptic in the crowd calling out the snake oil salesmen of AGW, like the fraud Michael Mann, for their incompetence and deception:)
How can you assert that? Butterfly populations (and any animal population), spend their entire lives converting O2 to CO2. They are in *no* way CO2 neutral (unless you think their corpses decay in such a way to re-absorb all the CO2 they created during their lives.
Methinks you don't have a very clear understanding of respiration and photosynthesis.
Popper's assertion of falsifiability as a means to distinguish science from pseudo-science was a major milestone in the refinement of the scientific method. The fact that you don't understand his refinement, and the importance of it, is a testament to your misunderstanding, and explains your misguided worship of Mr. Mann:)
To be clear, thus far your implication is that there is no need for falsifiability in order for us to consider the hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming to be true.
Put another way, not matter what we may observe, you will continue to believe in the likes of Mr. Mann and his expert opinion.
Doesn't that sound even the slightest bit to you like religion?
A grand mind in the refinement of the scientific method, to be sure.
The fact of the matter is that without the falsification demanded by Popper, you have essentially just another appeal to authority religion (as you so charmingly point out with your continuing insistence that degrees and "qualifications" are the hallmark of science, rather than the scientific method).
I'll take your dismissal of Popper as an admission of a complete lack of falsifiability in your particular belief structure.:)
Michael Mann is a fraud, a charlatan, a molester of data, and a protector of the Grand Cult of Global Warming. His qualifications only serve to deepen his shameful lack of scientific principle.
I, on the other hand, am simply asking for the first step of the scientific method - the falsifiable hypothesis statement. Something you, and other alarmists are completely incapable of presenting:)
Sure, we can go with that. Given the temperature rise from 1900-2000, how much economic benefit can be attributed to the 0.5C temperature rise, and how much economic damage can be attributed to the 0.5C temperature rise. As far as I can tell, nobody has any sort of quantification of that.
as long as you stay away from attacking the science-- go at it.
Well, if a single proponent of anthropogenic global warming would do the following, we could play the science game:
1) quantify the amount of anthropogenic influence due to CO2 emissions they're proposing is true; 2) have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement that clearly indicates what measures would exclude their asserted quantity of anthropogenic influence due to CO2 emissions.
When we say "human CO2 emissions cause global warming", we're saying the same thing as "butterfly CO2 emissions cause global warming" - neither has any sort of quantity associated with them, although we can stipulate that both are at least trivially true.
My problem is that people jump from "human CO2 has a non-zero influence on global average temperature" to "we must reduce our CO2 emissions to prevent armageddon, and all those who disagree with us are evil and must be silenced at all costs".
Is that what you call "catastrophic" anthropogenic global warming?
No, "catastrophic" would mean that more good than bad happened from anthropogenic global warming. This has been speculated, but not shown.
If this is what your talking about, the model is falsifiable, and has, so far, passed the tests given to it.
So what combination of CO2 and global average temperature next year would falsify the model?
My problem is that GCMs are typically addressed as "model means", which asserts that a collection of disagreeing models can be averaged to find truth. None of them are considered "falsified" because they don't specify what observations would falsify them.
I believe that your lack of degrees make you unqualified.
The fun part about science is that it doesn't require belief.
Of course, if you can't come up with the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, then you can't even start the science game.
I assert that you can't even *quote* someone else's falsifiable hypothesis statement - I'd even go so far as to assert that one has never existed.
Of course, my hypothesis is falsifiable - all you have to do is show me your statement, or quote someone else's:)
No, the question is even deeper than that - I dispute that a warmer world is a worse world. I can stipulate to warming, and even some measurable effect of humanity's CO2 emissions to that warming, but I will assert that this is *not* damage.
1850 was colder than 2012. 1900 was colder than 2012.
Do we really want to return to the population and technology of 1850 or 1900?
Apocalyptic nuts will always find *something* to worry about, I suppose...
Okay, so here's your challenge - a 100% complete survey of all costal areas, with data points for every year since, oh, say 1900.
At this point, you don't even have any reasonable assurance that *most* costal areas will be amplified by average sea level rise, much less what the magnitude of any amplification would be.
We call this hand waving:)
Put another way, butterflies emit CO2. Butterfly emitted CO2 causes global warming, sea level rise, and costal erosion. All of those assertions are *trivially* true (as in, there is almost undoubtedly a non-zero effect). What matters is the *quantification* of that.
And don't even get me started with the idea of tallying up the benefits of climate change versus the costs:)
Huh? Is English your second language? You've admitted you've asked a question without being specific enough as to who you're asking about - and somehow that's my problem?
So you're playing it as an amateur, without the qualifications of... for example Michael Mann.
Michael Mann's qualifications are irrelevant to the fact that he has not, and indeed cannot, come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Do you really believe that degrees make someone *right*? That science is decided by who has the most degrees?
Really?
Michael Mann is a fraud, and is unable to divorce his desire to be *right* with his responsibility to be *scientific*. Shame on him.
How is it cherry picking, if I'm choosing a 20 year period where CO2 has been raising dramatically?
The fact of the matter is that during a 20 year period of the highest CO2 ever experienced by humans, we've had a *slowing* in the rate of sea level rise. If we are to accept the simple notion that CO2 == global warming == sea level rise, it's obvious that we've missed something critically important...and possibly gotten our basic premise wrong.
And that's the real challenge for alarmists - they simply haven't expressed their hypothesis in a way that is both necessary, sufficient, and falsifiable. When 20 years of data can be dismissed as "cherry picking" when it refutes a hypothesis, but some other 20 year set is crowed as "definitive" when it doesn't refute a hypothesis, we call this pseudo-science.
Slashdot Mirror
a) when AGW alarmists see record heat waves, it's because of global warming. when they see record cold snaps, it's because of global warming. then they move to "climate change" (which, always does, so that's like saying "I'm right as long as something that always happens keeps happening"), and then the record does something silly like exhibit a zero trend for 16 years.
b) AGW isn't falsifiable because any observation of global average CO2 and global average temperature can be explained away with an ad hoc special pleading. If the melting glaciers *prove* AGW, but advancing glaciers don't *refute* it, then you've simply done a "heads I win, tails you lose".
Continental drift *is* falsifiable -> find a seam of rock stretching from south america to africa that is all of exactly the same age (given that our current hypothesis of continental drift depends on the mid atlantic creating new rock as those two continents drifted apart).
Exactly *which one* doesn't it explain?
Or, more to the point, what observations do you believe would falsify the novel idea that human CO2 emissions are going to cause catastrophic global climate change?
Food for thought: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/07/a-brief-history-of-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-record-breaking/
Yeah, but tmosley, at least Stirling is willing to give up his anonymity and insult without hiding his identity! :)
That is correct, but try telling people who deny natural global warming that :)
Ah, sorry Mr. Newberry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stirling_Newberry), I simply cannot hope to compete with someone willing to sacrifice their anonymity on slashdot - it's just too dangerous for me, but congratulations for your courage!
That all being said, it sounds like you're someone who has definitely gotten some motivated reasoning in order to ignore the evidence from the other side :)
Ah, I understand your clarification. Consider yourself called on it :)
Because in comparison to the other greenhouse gases (not to mention other climate driving variables), they simply cannot compete. Of course for both methane and CO2, the problem is that we don't simply have static sources and sinks -> they all interplay in such a complex manner, one cannot simply assert that a single variable drives the entire complex equation.
And that's *exactly* what someone who has used motivated reasoning to come to their position would say about the other side.
Ah, interesting - I hadn't thought of that one. It's certainly a neat parallel to the scaremongering of alarmists, gives it a nice symmetry I suppose :)
[Warmist] climatologists are modern day astrologers who can explain every single event ever observed, and ever to be observed with their pet hypothesis. Once you have a non-falsifiable hypothesis that asserts it is confirmed when it is both hot and cold and wet and dry, if people aren't discerning enough to realize you're playing the game of "heads I win, tails you lose", they can easily be fooled by the flimflam of people in lab coats. Heck, fake psychics use this all the time, maximizing their "hits" and minimizing their "misses", the way AGW proponents wave away refuting lines of data, but trumpet "confirming" ones.
On the other hand, for the most part, your physicists, astronomers, biologists, geologists and other *actual* scientists start with a falsifiable hypothesis, and then look for any possible falsifications a hard as they possibly can. Honestly, how many AGW proponents have actually tried to *look* for refuting data of their hypotheses? How hard did Michael Mann ever look at what possible flaws his hockey stick could have had?
Motivated reasoning is an excellent explanation for why otherwise rational atheists can develop a brand new Church of Global Warming.
You could just stop listening to the eco-activists until they start the first step of the scientific method and make clear their necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Problem solved :)
Maybe you're not a yankee, but actually, we do have this thing called the 1st amendment that means that we can *say* whatever we like.
As for "lies, misinformation and scaremongering", wouldn't that be what people who are asserting that the world is going to come to a terrible end because of human emissions of a trace gas measured in parts per million? I mean, look, if you want to call AGW skeptics liars, and misinformers, I can understand your motivated reasoning to, and you might even be able to make a cogent case for it, but scaremongering? Scaremongering? If anything, skeptics are *refuting* the "imminent doom unless you repent" cries of alarmists.
hurricane != climate
flood != climate
drought != climate
tornado != climate
superultramegastorm sandy !=climate
record high temperature at a given location != climate
record low temperature at a given location != climate ...actually, I might actually call drought "climate" now that I think about it.
"But second, that tack is unlikely to get anywhere with the 17 percent or so of highly-engaged Americans who reject the idea of a *naturally* warming planet, and are highly motivated to disregard anything that says otherwise."
There, fixed. Both sides apparently have highly motivated reasoning going on, no reason you can't turn the sentence around the other way.
I'd suggest the way to discern between the motivated reasoning and the scientific truth requires ye good old falsifiable hypothesis statement as per Karl Popper.
I'm sorry, perhaps you didn't understand me - since the major refinement of Popper's falsifiability qualification to discern between science and pseudo-science, it is *step one* of the scientific method. Perhaps pre-Popper, people didn't realize that it was necessary, but it was still *step one*.
They're more than standard, they're *required*. Any science done before Popper, that did not have a falsifiable hypothesis statement, was just as unscientific as any "science" done today without falsifiability.
Astrology was *always* not scientific - Popper merely put the requirement of falsifiability into clearly statement. His work was at its core one of discovery - the discovery of something that was always true.
Wait, wait, you want me to believe in something that you will insist is true no matter what observations we can possibly make, but *I'm* the snake oil salesman?
Really? :)
I'm the skeptic in the crowd calling out the snake oil salesmen of AGW, like the fraud Michael Mann, for their incompetence and deception :)
How can you assert that? Butterfly populations (and any animal population), spend their entire lives converting O2 to CO2. They are in *no* way CO2 neutral (unless you think their corpses decay in such a way to re-absorb all the CO2 they created during their lives.
Methinks you don't have a very clear understanding of respiration and photosynthesis.
Popper's assertion of falsifiability as a means to distinguish science from pseudo-science was a major milestone in the refinement of the scientific method. The fact that you don't understand his refinement, and the importance of it, is a testament to your misunderstanding, and explains your misguided worship of Mr. Mann :)
To be clear, thus far your implication is that there is no need for falsifiability in order for us to consider the hypothesis of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming to be true.
Put another way, not matter what we may observe, you will continue to believe in the likes of Mr. Mann and his expert opinion.
Doesn't that sound even the slightest bit to you like religion?
A grand mind in the refinement of the scientific method, to be sure.
The fact of the matter is that without the falsification demanded by Popper, you have essentially just another appeal to authority religion (as you so charmingly point out with your continuing insistence that degrees and "qualifications" are the hallmark of science, rather than the scientific method).
I'll take your dismissal of Popper as an admission of a complete lack of falsifiability in your particular belief structure. :)
Michael Mann is a fraud, a charlatan, a molester of data, and a protector of the Grand Cult of Global Warming. His qualifications only serve to deepen his shameful lack of scientific principle.
I, on the other hand, am simply asking for the first step of the scientific method - the falsifiable hypothesis statement. Something you, and other alarmists are completely incapable of presenting :)
Sure, we can go with that. Given the temperature rise from 1900-2000, how much economic benefit can be attributed to the 0.5C temperature rise, and how much economic damage can be attributed to the 0.5C temperature rise. As far as I can tell, nobody has any sort of quantification of that.
Well, if a single proponent of anthropogenic global warming would do the following, we could play the science game:
1) quantify the amount of anthropogenic influence due to CO2 emissions they're proposing is true;
2) have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement that clearly indicates what measures would exclude their asserted quantity of anthropogenic influence due to CO2 emissions.
When we say "human CO2 emissions cause global warming", we're saying the same thing as "butterfly CO2 emissions cause global warming" - neither has any sort of quantity associated with them, although we can stipulate that both are at least trivially true.
My problem is that people jump from "human CO2 has a non-zero influence on global average temperature" to "we must reduce our CO2 emissions to prevent armageddon, and all those who disagree with us are evil and must be silenced at all costs".
Michael Mann is a fraud and a charlatan who uses data upside down and can't even come up with a falsifiable hypothesis statement.
You can falsify my hypothesis by quoting a single falsifiable hypothesis statement from Mr. Mann :)
No, "catastrophic" would mean that more good than bad happened from anthropogenic global warming. This has been speculated, but not shown.
So what combination of CO2 and global average temperature next year would falsify the model?
My problem is that GCMs are typically addressed as "model means", which asserts that a collection of disagreeing models can be averaged to find truth. None of them are considered "falsified" because they don't specify what observations would falsify them.
Yeah, I've been to Venice this past summer in fact.
Now, just how many cm of sea level rise have they survived since their inception? :)
The fun part about science is that it doesn't require belief.
Of course, if you can't come up with the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, then you can't even start the science game.
I assert that you can't even *quote* someone else's falsifiable hypothesis statement - I'd even go so far as to assert that one has never existed.
Of course, my hypothesis is falsifiable - all you have to do is show me your statement, or quote someone else's :)
No, the question is even deeper than that - I dispute that a warmer world is a worse world. I can stipulate to warming, and even some measurable effect of humanity's CO2 emissions to that warming, but I will assert that this is *not* damage.
1850 was colder than 2012. 1900 was colder than 2012.
Do we really want to return to the population and technology of 1850 or 1900?
Apocalyptic nuts will always find *something* to worry about, I suppose...
Okay, so here's your challenge - a 100% complete survey of all costal areas, with data points for every year since, oh, say 1900.
At this point, you don't even have any reasonable assurance that *most* costal areas will be amplified by average sea level rise, much less what the magnitude of any amplification would be.
We call this hand waving :)
Put another way, butterflies emit CO2. Butterfly emitted CO2 causes global warming, sea level rise, and costal erosion. All of those assertions are *trivially* true (as in, there is almost undoubtedly a non-zero effect). What matters is the *quantification* of that.
And don't even get me started with the idea of tallying up the benefits of climate change versus the costs :)
Huh? Is English your second language? You've admitted you've asked a question without being specific enough as to who you're asking about - and somehow that's my problem?
Michael Mann's qualifications are irrelevant to the fact that he has not, and indeed cannot, come up with a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Do you really believe that degrees make someone *right*? That science is decided by who has the most degrees?
Really?
Michael Mann is a fraud, and is unable to divorce his desire to be *right* with his responsibility to be *scientific*. Shame on him.
How is it cherry picking, if I'm choosing a 20 year period where CO2 has been raising dramatically?
The fact of the matter is that during a 20 year period of the highest CO2 ever experienced by humans, we've had a *slowing* in the rate of sea level rise. If we are to accept the simple notion that CO2 == global warming == sea level rise, it's obvious that we've missed something critically important...and possibly gotten our basic premise wrong.
And that's the real challenge for alarmists - they simply haven't expressed their hypothesis in a way that is both necessary, sufficient, and falsifiable. When 20 years of data can be dismissed as "cherry picking" when it refutes a hypothesis, but some other 20 year set is crowed as "definitive" when it doesn't refute a hypothesis, we call this pseudo-science.