Well, on formal logical grounds, proof that A causes B does not tell you anything at all about whether B causes A, and it definitely doesn’t tell you that B cannot cause A. If it did, fire wouldn’t work.

Also, the situation where CO2 rises smoothly over a period of a century or more, without any geological or climate driver, can only (as far as we know) be produced by a global industrial civilisation. So unless you think that there was such a civilisation at some point in pre-history, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you don’t see its fingerprints in the paleo-climate record. No-one thinks the last ice-age ended because the neanderthals were burning too many fossil fuels.

Knowledge of climateology is not required to refute most of the claims made in TGGWS – just basic logic. And if that’s the best the denialists have got, well, I’m even more convinced now than I was before.

“Why I love Randi, part n

Because he loves me too, of course.”

For goodness’ sake, just get a room, would you?!!!
–

As for Randi – I think he’s an electronic construct from Pixar (Disney lacks the sense of humor). No sane individual could be so rational and survive in the modern world.

Now, I’m going to go buy a 14 billion jars of peanut butter…

But you’ll have to wait for the DVD to know for sure…

(Hard to be sardonic w/o sound effects,,,)

Gary 7

<cue junior high school level of angst and jealousy>

Hey, that looks like me,,,oh, wait, no, the beard’s too small.

Definition of a scientist: One who looks at empirical evidence and formulates hypotheses to explain that data,,,

Sounds like Randi to me,,,

Now for a bit of whimsy:

As one Randy old goat said to another,
“I stink, therefore,,,
I ram,,,”

Gary 7

A short quote from there, regarding the graphs:
“…It turns out that producer Martin Durkin also “edited” his graph material, to produce a spurious conclusion by disregarding all information obtained after 1980 and “stretching out” the remaining results to fill up the graph space! If you’re still unconvinced that the UK/Channel 4 film was a purposeful sham, go to portal.campaigncc.org/node/1820.It turns out that producer Martin Durkin also “edited” his graph material, to produce a spurious conclusion by disregarding all information obtained after 1980 and “stretching out” the remaining results to fill up the graph space! If you’re still unconvinced that the UK/Channel 4 film was a purposeful sham, go to portal.campaigncc.org/node/1820…”

There was apparently a lot of “creative” editing involved in the making of this piece of propaganda.

On one hand you have the denialists saying the climate is way too complicated to model (which it isn’t) in order to reject the mainstream climatologist position. On the other hand they use these inordinately oversimplified analyses (even they can even be called that) to support their own position. It is a standard antiscience tactic, they demand unfeasibly high standards of scientific evidence for their opponents but for themselves are content with extremely lax standards, if any standards at all, for themselves.

It is like the Discovery Institute berating biologists for not being able to explain every stage of evolution of every molecule in every organism on the planet. However, they are content for themselves with vague and unusable pseudo-mathematical conjectures and arguments from ignorance, saying they don’t have to explain anything about how their process works, when it happened, where it happened, or to what parts of what organism. It is the same here, they demand unattainable levels of detail for the climatologists, but for themselves a mere glance at a plot and their own intuition is enough to prove their position.

Just like a real scientist would. Just like you would.

He may not be a “real scientist”, but he’s about as good a friend as science and rationality could have and we’re all the better off for Randi.

Also, in BA’s comments of global warming, I can’t help but note that technically it is the greenhouse effect that keeps Earth from freezing over, not global warming. Related concepts, of course, but not exactly equivalent.

http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7803

It was great playing the part of the sceptic for once.

You are definitely part of the Randiverse.