[jessedhillon]

I didn't say anything about popularity mattering.

In the absence of any better way of ascertaining objective truth about the world than the scientific method, I choose to accept the fact of consensus -- that a large number of scientists have failed to falsify the theory -- as being a meaningful indication about the truth of global warming.

EDIT -- I assume with your reference to Einstein, you mean that the whole world was wrong about the motion of physical bodies, with their notions from Newtonian models, until relativity came along? If so, you may care to read this: http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

It's about the difference between a wrong theory and an incomplete one.

[PakG1]

Just curious, how is climate change falsifiable? What we have is a lot of data and a lot of models. We don't have any way to test this data and models, no? Furthermore, we don't know if we know everything about the subject, although we would appear to know a lot.

So the only way to falsify it is if new data comes out? But for something so complicated, future data is likely a crapshoot? We can only estimate future data based on current models, which may or may not be able to model reality well, given how complex and nonlinear the entire system is?

It seems really difficult to falsify the idea of global warming.

[arethuza]

The only way I could see it being falsified is if we got access to a new source of historical data that somehow was more accurate than all existing sources (which seems unlikely) or by waiting to see what happens and obtaining new data that way (which might give an unpleasant answer).

I'm not sure how the concept of a theory being falsifiable applies when you can't really run repeated controlled experiments.

[ugh]

Specific predictions and assumptions of the models can most certainly be falsified.

[jessedhillon]

You're right -- it's an established fact that the median temperatures have increased over a period of time. What would need to be falsified is the theory of anthropogenic global warming -- i.e., that the warming is caused by humans.