In its pamphlet, the Royal Society purports to speak on behalf of a consensus of scientists. But no such consensus exists. Direct polling of climate scientists has shown that about 30% are "skeptical" of anthropogenic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists recently signed the Oregon Petition, which expresses doubt about the major conclusions of the IPCC, and opposes the drastic mitigation demands of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation of the U.S. Congress.
And this is the most important thing you should know.
Mr. Singer, a professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, is the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. His most recent book is "Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1500 Years."
The GW warming argument is failing. In fact, Mr. Singer has split it in half.
Should we be making public policy based on what is conflicted and flawed science?
Surely not.
The original objections to the Oregon Petition still apply -- most of the signers do not have PhDs and are not practising scientists. Just 40 of the signers claim to be climatologists, and since they don't tell you their names, it's impossible to check whether they are, in fact, climatologists.
ReplyDeleteBigcitylib decided to test their quality control by signing using a fake name and fake qualifications. He's on the list.
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"most of the signers do not have PhDs"
ReplyDeleteOh, you mean like Pope Algore....
Let's say 25% of the signers don't have Phds.... that leaves 22,500..
In the meantime Global Cooing continues..the planet has not warmed for about 10 years and last year was especially hard.
Actually, since there's no way to check whether or not anyone on the petition is a climate scientist or has a Ph.D, and anyone can sign using a fake name and credentials, it really doesn't demonstrate anything about the consensus, or imaginary lack thereof, on the subject of global warming.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't too logical or simplistic for your complicated and wise intelligence, is it?
Consensus and science doesn't belong in the same paragraph.
ReplyDeletebye bye
So, the fact that there is consensus about gravity means we should start mistrusting physicists?
ReplyDeleteActually, what belongs with science is falsifiability.
falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, it means that it is capable of being criticized by observational reports. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science.
Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable.
Not all statements that are falsifiable in principle are falsifiable in practice. For example, "it will be raining here in one million years" is theoretically falsifiable, but not practically. On the other hand, a statement like "there exist parallel universes which cannot interact with our universe" is not falsifiable even in principle; there is no way to test whether such a universe does or does not exist.
When GW can be demonstrated with the certainty of gravity, let me know.
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