| The only thing that matters is whether AGW is a crisis. If it's not, we don't especially need to do anything about it. The idea that any group is still claiming there's been no warming at all is essentially an urban legend. The debate has "moved on" from there. That public debate I referenced addressed to the heart of the question and the AGW side lost it; the skeptics (in my view, quite justifiably) won. > It's not entirely clear what you mean by "most published articles are false" I mean that most published research findings are false, for exactly the reasons detailed here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ You don't seem to have read the article, or you're missing the context it addresses. Of particular relevance to climate studies is that they tend to be looking for (a) a small effect size (b) in a popular field (c) with lots of money at stake and (d) a great deal of flexibility in experiment design and analysis methods - these are all aspects that suggest a higher-than average probability of false conclusions being reached. > Genuinely good results are obviously good and aren't at all likely to be "false", and there are plenty of these, even if they're a minority. I don't know how you are defining some results as "genuinely good" or "obviously good" - how would one test that? I question the assertion that these are useful categories. All scientific results are tentative and can be overturned by later results. "Obviousness" isn't something one can judge other than much much later in retrospect. Regarding being wrong, the most damning aspect of the Hockey Team has been their inability to admit error. If you can't admit ever having made a mistake, you can't learn from your errors and make the study better next time. Of the two sides, my impression is that the skeptics have been more willing to admit and evaluate the possibility of error and more willing to explore other hypotheses. And also willing to say "we don't know" when that's the best answer. True, part of that comes from being outside the mainstream so there's less at stake. But another part is that CAGW isn't really a scientific position - it more closely resembles a religion. (Infallibility is a more popular attribute among the faithful than it is among the scientifically minded.) Again and again we see data sets used inappropriately on the grounds that doing so produces the right answer - that's just not science. You can't arbitrarily flip and crop Mia Tiljander's sediment series or search through Graybill bristlecones until you find some that have the right shape, and then use the shape they produce as evidence for your theory. You're right, I'm pretty sure pro-AGW people do at some level want it to be taking place. They do so because threats to humanity are exciting. Humans have a need to be involved and worried about threats and there just aren't enough real threats to worry about in modern life. Centuries ago, people were too busy scrabbling for food or fighting in wars or fighting diseases to be worried about anything so obscure and distant. Worrying that things might get ever-so-slightly warmer a century from now, that water levels might be ever-so-slightly higher then than now, that we might need to plant different crops or observe a different mix of wildlife ...is a huge luxury. |