GardenBanter.co.uk - Dont laugh he's serious.... Obama on climate change

On 30/01/2010 5:33 PM, Jonno wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/v/q20cnn8vOfg..._embedded&fs=1

The comment about science being self correcting is true, over the long
term. Nature (not the journal) provides the main impetus, though humans
often help.

Of course 'climate science' is a special sort of science. It has no
underpinning theory: there is no theory of global warming, just a lot of
observations, a lot of dubious hypothesis, and a large number of
computer models which don't agree with each other, let alone observation.

Above all, climate science has become the holy of holy: you can't
question any part of it without being bad mouthed.

For example, you might want to question if a tree, or a group of trees
in Siberia or the US have a 'magic radio' which permits us to learn, via
tree ring data, whether the summer of 1786 was globally colder or warmer
than the summer of 1929. Since many factors go in to tree growth, you
might want to question wether or that tree says anything about its own
temperature history, let alone that of the entire world. But if you do
question that 'fact' you are told 'the science is settled and only
climate deiners refuse to accept it'.

The data is proprietary (let us remember that successful and allegedly
criminal attempts at blocking UK FOI requests are at the heart of
Climategate). So if a group of scientist with no qualifications in
advanced statistics write a flawed paper, itself reviewed by people with
undergraduate statistical expertise, that data, their algoritms, etc.,
are not available for independent critical review.

Thats a pretty unique branch - a science with no theoretical
underpinning (find me a testable 'theory of global warming') which
cannot be questioned, where the methodologies cannot be questioned,
where the data is proprietary (and therefore cannot be questioned),
where the conclusions are drawn from models which have no demonstrated
predictive skill, and which is, above all, overseen by a POLITICAL BODY,
which is what the IPCC is. And its not just the IPCC: anybody looking
for research money knows there is an awful lot more money in research
with a climate angle than anything else these days. And the problem with
science these days is, you get the answers you pay for.

There is no other branch of science that comes close to climate science
in terms of shoddiness of theory or purposeful obfuscation of the
underlying data.

And yet climate science dominates public policy like no other branch of
science.

Better versed people than DHS you can find here
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/24389/page1/--
Their comments are very interesting too. You can find them on the bottom
of the page as usual