here is a point I will concede: It is very hard to pour through the data. That is why its not anyones job here to convince you in a paragraph or two. But this is a good start. you have to say “I think A” then you have to go and find out why A is wrong. YOU have to do it. No one can or will spoon feed it to you. Here is an example of someone who spent a lot of time doing exactly that

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/

Sooner or later we will get to the bottom of this. Congress will see to it, if not now then after 2010 elections.

OK, I made it too simple , it is not “argumentum ad populum” but a combination of “argumentum ad populum” and “argumentum ad verecundiam” (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

How hard it is to explain basics of logic to a physicist? Have can I do it.? Let me try again. First, please have some respect to someone who got at least some education in logic and decision theory. Here is what I learned in school: We distinguish different forms of reasoning and each has different place. Induction play important role in formulating hypothesis but using patterns of inductive logic as form of proof is a fallacy. Scientific theories can start from an analogy (atom is a solar system) or some hypothesis based on inductive inference but the proof is always based on FACTS+DEDUCTION. In common sense reasoning we use induction and abduction much more often than deduction and it works in everyday situations.

So your appeal to authority indeed qualifies as a rational behavior, acceptable for your own ends, but it would not stand as a public argument in the court of law even in ancient Athens.

“Dave, ManBearPig was a parody on how you reason about greenhouse effect.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

So how do you make your choice?

a) The overwhelming opinion of the great majority of climate scientists!
b) The lack of a credible mechanism given by ANY climate scientists as to why the greenhouse effect would NOT be pertinent.
c) Acidization of the oceans.
d)The *rate* of warming.
e) The alarming rise in sea levels this century.
f) I give little credence to mere noisemakers.

http://www.realclimate.org

Just as, given “micro” evolution, I accept speciation because of the lack of a credible mechanism as to why speciation does not occur.

Just as I don’t expect the car to start flying as I cross the Nevada state line.

Just as I expect a planet several light years away to orbit it’s star according to the known laws of gravitation.

In all these cases, there is nothing known, no credible mechanism, which would change observations. In fact, in all cases, observations are in accordance with expectation.

“That is precisely what argument ad populum is. Fallicy.”

Deferring to the expert consensus is the rational behaviour when making an informed decision and has nothing to do with the fallacy of formal logic you invoke.

Yes, 1000 experts might be wrong and the ten dissenters right, but you go with the 1000. They are almost always right and the dissenters wrong. On big well-studied issues, the scientific consensus is almost always right compared to the alternatives. Revolutions do not happen every day!

Or, in this case, it’s :

IPCC
U.S. Global Change Research Program
International Arctic Science Committee
American Meteorological Society
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
World Meteorological Organization
American Geophysical Union
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
Geological Society of America
Geological Society of Australia
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
American Quaternary Association
International Union for Quaternary Research

European Academy of Sciences and Arts
InterAcademy Council
International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences

32 *national science academies* making joint statements about AGW.

American Association for the Advancement of Science
European Science Foundation
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies

Current major national or international bodies of scientific standing who dissent from the consensus: None

“when you see evidences of lie from the core 50 scientists who were leader in making the IPCC report”

This lie of yours is still libelous.

Thanks for the blog links full of conspiracy. In your head, they probably change reality.

Yeah, well that’s all well and good if you actually bothered to do some work yourself. But you sit there and say “someone needs to convince me”. Have you bothered to pick up a text book? Have you dived in any small percentage of the literature on this? I’m fine with you not wanting to trust someone just because they have a title. Thats healthy skepticism. Not actually bothing to understand the basics of why they are making those claims, not bothering to challenge your own skepticism? that is denialism.

An example that I think would be more relevant to how I view this is saying breast cancer is good, no… breast cancer is bad, no… breast cancer is good. Or another example would be: here take this pill, it cures breast cancer but causes brain cancer.

And once again you have shown yourself to not bother to understand the science. I dont really care how you interpret it, when you show so clearly that you have not bothered to try to understand the basics. ir even the basics of how science works.

You example above shows that you simply believe the fringe. a tiny minority of fringe scientists claims the globe is cooling, you beleive it, a fringe group of scientists (again almost none of them climatologists) claim the world is not warming, and you believe it.

Your problem isnt just that you havent bothered to take time to attempt to fully understand the dynamics, you simply beleive the fringe. That its why you have the impression you have. Stop doing that.

And yeah, after all this time, after all these years of delay and fear mongering. after decades of not doing science, not developing independant models that show warming without anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, after all these years of repeated long debunked canards like cosmic rays, 800 year lag and so forth… i do in fact think denialists are assholes.

Wanna know who actually faked data? The producers of the Great Global Warming Swindle. politically and economically motivation denialists are almost always caught. A couple of tardy emails from frustrated scientists and you go off half cocked, again with the fringe group, who have consistently lead you wrong in the past.

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m12d11-Global-warming-loyalty-oaths-and-Climategates-smoking-gun

For more than two weeks we have heard the establishment scientists saying that the leaked emails were take out of context. Unfortunately for them, putting them in context makes it even worse, as McIntyre shows with one series that should have district attorneys dusting off the definition of RICO statutes. The emails show collusion to place inaccurate and incomplete data into public evidence for policy makers charged with enacting appropriate legislation to evaluate and deal with climate change.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/21/manipulating-climate-change-warming-to-rico/
Manipulating Climate Change: Warming to RICO?

Well, now it really does look like a massive conspiracy to defraud the government……
Fraud is a RICO predicate offense. If what we are seeing unfold is evidence of fraud, a RICO complaint is a possibility, along with what the “discovery” process would reveal.

http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=websterb&date=091125

Those who were most responsible for massive diversion of federal spending (tens of billions of dollars over the past three decades) should not only be fired, they should be tried for criminal conspiracy and violations of the RICO Act. They have corrupted science, the classroom and political processes for their own personal empire-building gains.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_113009/content/01125109.guest.html

I have an article here: “RICO Convictions of Major Tobacco Companies Affirmed — [T]he DC Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a 92-page per curiam opinion upholding the judgment issued by DC District Court … in August 2006.” Well, this is how the big warmers should be treated, exactly — and Algore is the biggest of the big warmers along with Phil Jones and Michael Mann and everybody else at this CRU place at East Anglia. There should be legal consequences for this fraud! I remember those hearings. Waxman held those hearings. That’s when the CEO said nicotine was not addictive. Remember all that? We’ve been through this before. Except last time the left was out destroying a capitalist enemy. This time they’re circling the wagons around one of their own, which is genuinely destroying capitalism.

http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2009/12/climategate-rel.php

From there you proceed into issues of potential legal liability, for transparency and other laws broken, possible RICO exposure, and other legal fallout for the principals.

Sounds as if we have growing consensus

>>Manbearpig is not physics.

Dave, ManBearPig was a parody on how you reason about greenhouse effect. I am surprised that you missed even that !!!!

>>>The IPCC’s reports have been endorsed by …..
…And so it is true. That is precisely what argument ad populum is. Fallicy. Has nothing to do with science.

But you like to claim that your arguments are based on science. Now when I hear such claims in future I will be very suspicious.

>>This lie of yours is libelous.

Yes we should witewash deletion of data, fudging data and hiding from FOIA requests as this article tries to do. But it is dishonest. Fudging data is a direct lie, while deletion of data, and hiding from FOIA requests are natural signs of criminal activity.

“NIPCC report”

The IPCC is a United Nations body. It’s job is to assess the intergovernmental consensus of climate scientists and report on it.

The NIPCC is a small group of skeptics sponsored by a politically-motivated (libertarian/conservative free market-oriented) think tank based in Chicago, Illinois.

The IPCC’s reports have been endorsed by

Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
European Geosciences Union
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US)
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London

and many other national and international scientific bodies.

The NIPCC report is endorsed by Rush Limbaugh and some libertarians with blogs.

“evidences of lie from the core 50 scientists who were leader in making the IPCC report”

This lie of yours is libelous.

“water vapor is an important driver of greenhouse effect”
Amplifier – it doesn’t drive it in Earth’s atmosphere. Can’t drive it: water vapour has an atmospheric lifetime of about ten days.

Does CO2 and heavy gases like Methane make a major contribution?

Yes. Especially CO2.

no one can prove that ManBearPig does not drive greenhouse effect

Therefore God exists. And Leprachauns. Wait, no – What?

Manbearpig is not physics.

http://www.realclimate.org

>Deferring to the expert consensus is the rational behaviour when making an informed decision and has nothing to do with the fallacy of formal logic you invoke.

Again Dave, there is no consensus! See NIPCC report which has about as many heads behind it as IPCC report. Second, what “Argumentum ad populum” actually mean in your world?

Third, I agree with your point on rational behavior. In fact rational behavior and decision making is the field where I involved in. Yes it is rational to put bets on outcome with highest probability. It is rational for an organization to trust a community of the leading expert (so they all signed it). But it is also rational to look at internal group dynamic and to suspect scam when you see evidences of lie from the core 50 scientists who were leader in making the IPCC report. You and I both use rules of rational behavior. And *that has nothing to do with science*.

b)
>The greenhouse effect is occurring
Yes of course, water vapor is an important driver of greenhouse effect, we all agree on this. Does CO2 and heavy gases like Methane make a major contribution? You know what, the truth is that the biggest and far the most important driver of the greenhouse effect is the breath of ManBearPig! It is ManBearPig what drives greenhouse effect !!!! And as no one can prove that ManBearPig does not drive greenhouse effect, he certanly does! Got it?

And by the way, ManBearPig is going to get you.

Deferring to the expert consensus is the rational behaviour when making an informed decision and has nothing to do with the fallacy of formal logic you invoke.

Yes, 1000 experts might be wrong and the ten dissenters right, but you go with the 1000. They are almost always right and the dissenters wrong. On big well-studied issues, the scientific consensus is almost always right compared to the alternatives. Revolutions do not happen every day!

Or, in this case, it’s :

IPCC
U.S. Global Change Research Program
International Arctic Science Committee
American Meteorological Society
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
World Meteorological Organization
American Geophysical Union
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
Geological Society of America
Geological Society of Australia
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
American Quaternary Association
International Union for Quaternary Research

European Academy of Sciences and Arts
InterAcademy Council
International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences

32 *national science academies* making joint statements about AGW.

American Association for the Advancement of Science
European Science Foundation
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies

Current major national or international bodies of scientific standing who dissent from the consensus: None

b) The lack of a credible mechanism given by ANY climate scientists as to why the greenhouse effect would NOT be pertinent.

“This is actually a known fallacy “Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio): a conclusion based on silence or lack of contrary evidence “

- Er, no. Fallacy wrongly applied. Well done though – a little bit more actual thinking and you’re close to discovering that science is greatly reliant on induction.

Climate science is not some gedanken experiment. The greenhouse effect is occurring. No mitigating mechanism has been found. There is no reason to think there is such a mechanism. Since it hasn’t been found- well, only cosmologists are allowed to suggest that the laws of physics can change from place to place! FINIS.

a) The overwhelming opinion of the great majority of climate scientists!

First, it is not overwhelming great majority . Do not forget about NIPCC and many climate scientists who sideline with it. Second, even if that were a majority it does not make scientific argument. Or else you are guilty of “Argumentum ad populum (“appeal to belief”, “appeal to the majority”, “appeal to the people”): where a proposition is claimed to be true solely because many people believe it to be true ” see REF1

b) The lack of a credible mechanism given by ANY climate scientists as to why the greenhouse effect would NOT be pertinent.

OK, if there is no proof that ManBeraPig does not exist then it must exist Even South Park comics “ManBearPig” gets it. This isactually a known fallacy “Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio): a conclusion based on silence or lack of contrary evidence ” (see REF1)

c) Acidization of the oceans.
Sorry do not know how this should be connected with AGW, no comment on this.

d)The *rate* of warming.

Neither it is unprecidented if you look at various historic records, nor we actually know for sure if any of these records correct . Hockey stick was debunked by Ed Wegman comission , see his report to Congress (REF2)

e) The alarming rise in sea levels this century.

There are conflicting reports on this either. “Global Warming Swindle” movie is controversial, but the scientist who was talking about absense of sea level variations was not the one who challanged the producer.

So, why not to honestly acknowledge that you do not have enough quality information to make a scientific opinion on the issue and what you really use is (a). And what you use is merely a kind of plausible reasoning well described by Jaynes in the begining of the first chapter of his “Probability Theory: The Logic of Science” (see REF3). And plausible reasoning is merely a variaty of common sense reasoning.

REF1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
REF2 http://climateaudit.org/2006/07/14/wegman-report-release/
REF 3 http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html

a) The overwhelming opinion of the great majority of climate scientists!
b) The lack of a credible mechanism given by ANY climate scientists as to why the greenhouse effect would NOT be pertinent.
c) Acidization of the oceans.
d)The *rate* of warming.
e) The alarming rise in sea levels this century.
f) I give little credence to mere noisemakers.

http://www.realclimate.org

OK, let me help you: Being not an expert you can only believe in one or another authority in climate science. When authorities have distinct and mutually exclusive opinions you have to choose . Your choice can not possibly be based on science since you know next to nothing about it. So how do you make your choice? You use your common sense, not science. You may decide e.g. go with perceived majority or go with your more informed college. In context of logic such reasoning is a fallacy, so it is not science. But we always apply plausible reasoning in our common sense. And this is what I do too, the difference between two of us is difference in our common sense reasoning procedure and of course our abilities to reflect on own reasoning process. And this is not about science, it is about common sense.

Your self-proclaimed honesty is heart-warming, but since your opinion has nothing to do with the science and the actual warming that is actually happening, you are misguided at best.

I wonder why many common people understand this point, while some established scientists do not.

@ian
“How could they ever get a PhD in the field, given the likes of Jones and Mann, who would not accept their dissertation?”
You don’t put Jones and Mann on your jury committee.

I do not think it is about science as such.