Anyone one of us who has entered a debate over scientific evidence has, at some point, had their confidence in scientific methodology undermined by their opponent. Such confidence in the science, it is argued, proves that we hold a religious-like faith to science and are thus blind to the reality. Laughingly, the opponent goes on to burn this straw-man down, claiming a hollow victory.
Evolution has been mocked as being a new religion and all too often, I hear the term “climate change faith”. It’s blatantly obvious that such criticism is unfounded, delusional and hopelessly flawed, however it does cause people like myself, to become (unfairly) embarrassed at their confidence in scientific practices. The most obvious retort would be to say that unlike religion, science is a process of self-improvement via critical investigation and continuous questioning – traits that are deplored within religion.
But then I remembered a great quote and went on the hunt for it;
“[Religion and science] …are deeply opposed. Science is a discipline of investigation and constructive doubt, questing with logic, evidence and reason to draw conclusions. Faith, by stark contrast, demands a positive suspension of critical faculties.
‘Sciences proceeds by setting up hypotheses, ideas or models and then attempts to disprove them. So a scientist is constantly asking questions, being sceptical. Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakeable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.”
Richard Dawkins, (2006) The God Delusion.
It could be stated that the vast majority of those who label themselves “climate sceptics” have no scientific training and have done nothing to improve our understanding of the world yet feel right to blindly oppose evidence that is contrary to what they would like to believe. Effectively, they have hijacked the title “sceptic” without applying any critical investigation or expert re-evaluation of the accumulated data and understanding. They couple this with untested belief in UN plots, and unrealistic fears of economical ruin, starvation and turmoil; is this not compatible to devil that would lead us to hell?
Last week, I demonstrated how it’s really the denialist who are also the true alarmists (and come to think of it, I’ve just demonstrated it yet again) and here I’ve demonstrated how they are not sceptics at all, but have developed their own religion-like belief system. This belief system is untested, based on scraps of selective “evidence” (a small number of questionable papers and a selection of mined quotes) and, as anyone who has tried to debate with them would have also realised, is totally unshakeable truth for those who want to believe it – no amount of scientific evidence can ever alter their perception of the facts.
So be confident, dear reader, in you conviction that through scientific methodology we increasingly understand the world, the universe and ourselves ever more so. Feel free to be unashamed to bet on the evidence. Openly scoff those who try to put science down as a religion and those who have hijacked the title “sceptic”. By addressing this rise of irrationality for what it is and exposing the inappropriate labels that they smear across science, hopefully we can lead to world to something more logical and certainly a lot healthier.
Here is another presentation that I stumbled across by Richard Dawkins, “If science worked like religion”
newanthropocene.wordpress.com 
Clearly Richard Dawkins takes my point as you quote him as saying “Science proceeds by setting up hypotheses, ideas or models and then attempts to disprove them.”
Can you tell us what circumstances, if any, would disprove your global warming hypothesis?
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Move on from the other page, huh? Got sick of looking at the link to the paper that you didn’t understand or the continuous assertions I provided you and Colin that expecting a linear relationship between CO2 concentrations and the global temperature anomaly without acknowledging that the energy input in simply an absurd hypothesis?
Actually Elsa, Dawkins has publicly stated that he supports the scientific evidence that backs up the theory of AGW so he too accepts it as scientifically based and does not ignore such a fundamental elements of it as you do.
Indeed hypothesis, ideas and models are all used in climate science. We have a very good understanding of how CO2 acts in the atmosphere and we also have no doubt that concentrations have increased and global temperatures have increased accordingly (in relation to the energy input – a point you continually quite conveniently ignore). If you had read and understood that paper I provided, you would have seen that using such information, including flux data, recorded around the world, we understand much of the different inputs (both positive and negative) of the various factors involved and use them to derive the equations that estimate climate behaviour – ie. models. There is of course some uncertainty – cloud being the most obvious – but as new measuring techniques become available, this uncertainty is decreasing and in all, it does not change the strong likelihood of AGW, only what predictions / forecasts we can create.
I’ve answered your question on numerous occasions, but you excel in ignoring and side stepping what you don’t understand or upsets your mantra. With my previous paragraph in mind, what would disprove the theory of AGW would be if the equations are demonstrated to be fundamentally wrong or if the physical chemistry on which it relies on were demonstrated to be wrong. For your “basic” test to disprove it, we would need the global temperature anomaly to act independently of CO2 concentration (as you assume occurred in the mid 20th century) taking in mind not only CO2 levels, but also the amount of infra-red radiation available. As I provided to Colin, the mid century solar input is known and so is much of the atmospheric chemistry, a very new paper available for instance includes fine particles from the nuclear testing over that period as one of the influences to reducing IR.
As I’ve said repeatedly; the theory is scientific; it is tested repeatedly; it is not generally questioned any longer within the scientific community (this public debate is nothing but perpetual unreasonable doubt), but some of the sensitivities are; the scientific basis and literature are readily available if you genuinely wanted to understand the topic (instead of ignoring what you don’t like to continue to push an unrealistic hypothesis) – all you need to do is look at it!!
The persistence you have of avoiding the science involved is nothing unique and is the reason why, at the beginning, I warned you that I wouldn’t entertain you because I’m tired of it, but I couldn’t help myself – I love information and understanding and do my best to provide it. Both Colin and yourself demonstrate that you are unwilling to take the science seriously (you don’t look at the information I provide or refer to the reliable sites for an introduction of the subject), yet hold the belief that you validly conclude it lacking. It’s no different to creationists who, to this day, persist with the view that the evidence is lacking – but don’t take the science seriously to begin with. Your attitude is exactly like Wendy Wright’s to evolution when she says, “What you’re talking about it commonalities, but again, where’s the material evidence…”
You don’t understand the scope of the sciences involved and why we are certain of the influences in play – you simply put them down as circumstantial and fatally flawed by a mid century stability which has already been explored and is fairly well understood.
No matter how many opinion pieces you feel support your statements or how much you think this or that is the case, the science is real and available – it’s entirely your own failing if you continue to ignore it.
You will not be entertained with the same baseless mantra on this site any longer.
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Surely Moth all you need to do is answer Elsa’s question. Then you wouldn’t be bothered again.
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I wish it were that simple. Although there is a fair amount of comment on my part here, you’ve missed much of the exchange on this post and also this post at WtD.
I’ve gone to great length not only to answer Elsa’s question, but also to demonstrate the flaw in the alternate hypothesis provided by Elsa. I’m drawn after such ignored effort to conclude in the words of Tim Minchin,
“Science adjust it’s views based on what’s observed.
Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved.”
Elsa needs to keep the idea presented preserved thus is blind to reason – hence why, to stop being bothered, I must just move on. Are you, by change aware of a Colin? He too has a similar email address and comes along to give Elsa a little support of the same nature (ie. “answer Elsa’s question”)?
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Elsa has not asked you to provide examples of you being right. She has asked what could happen that would show you are wrong.
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Roger, like Colin (and as it appears that the you of you are trolls, if not simply spammers – in fact, I strongly suspect you’re the same person even possibly as Elsa – a cheap tactic) I’ve done this. If you had looked at the links, you would have known as much. I will not allow any more pointless comments, such as the one I’m replying to, on this site.
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