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While that's very true, it's also not saying much. At all.

A pre-emptive strike only.

 

Meh. Scientists aren't usually in the habit of "spinning" their data when their work is subject to peer review. That is, after all, the exact sort of behaviour peer review exists to hold in check......When a scientist "spins" his data, he can expect to be called on it by the rest of the community.

 

Yes, and the government exists to protect the peoples' interests. Intentions and reality sometimes don't mesh too well. Scientists are most definitely more trustworthy than politicians, but then the question must be asked: What makes the minority speaking about the Earth's cycles so untrustworthy? They're scientists too, so is it just that they're in the minority? Would those on the Global Warming side be so much less trustworthy if there were less of them?

Being in someone's pocket or spinning data are disclaimers that can be bandied about so easily. (Just look at any studies regarding hot topics like homosexuality to see what I mean.) Likewise, how do we know that those studies which have not gone under peer review were submitted but just ignored? It's a completely baseless accusation, but there's no proof either way (or at least nothing that couldn't be discounted as lies or spin).

But what all this rediculousness draws from is that you're asking us not to trust one group of scientists, while saying we can inherently trust another group. The contradiction is quite clear, barring actual proof that the studies are BS. And even that could be dismissed as spin by this point. As I said, a dark day for modern science, and people in general for that matter; when you can't trust scientists anymore, who can you trust?

 

Bad science is bad science, Felinoid. There are incompetents in every profession, and peer review exists to ferret out incompetent work.

Look, dude, the ammount of evidence of Global Warming and Mankind's hand in it is positively staggering. The scientists arguing that Global Warming will just "go away" in X number of years do not have the mountains of evidence to make such a claim credibly. It isn't that scientists are "biased" against them......it's just that the "anti-global warming" club needs to have some actual hard evidence to make the point they are trying to make.....especially since there is lots of hard evidence pointing to the threat of Global Warming and Mankind's hand in it.

Global Warming, it's cause, and the threat it presents have been tested and re-tested time and time again. There is a mountain of real, factual evidence and researching supporting the mainstream scientific communitie's conclusions. The opponents of Global Warming have yet to come up with any actual hard evidence of enough significance to even make a dent in the overwhelming body of evidence that the world's scientific community has used to reach its conclusions. Even if they were to come up with such evidence, their work will only be beginning because they will then need to test, re-test, and test those conclusions again with repeatable, consistent results. That's how science works. Making sweeping claims without doing the research and testing is not only unscientific, but irresponsible as well.

This isn't about bias. It's about evidence.....mountains of it. Global Warming has been tested repeatedly.....proven repeatedly......and the evidence for it is so staggering that even the conservative scientists Bush commisioned to disprove Global Warming came out on the side of the mainstream scientific community. Because that's where the body of evidence points. Facts matter......and science isn't about compromise or a democratic process....or giving equal voice to every crackpot. It's about the facts as we understand them and the conclusions we can draw from them......and our ability to repeatedly and consistently test and prove (or, more aptly, fail to disprove) those conclusions.

[ June 24, 2006, 09:04: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

I doubt whether there is anybody on SP who can say that have enough evidence either way. We're all just repeating stuff that we have heard convincing sounding people tell us. Are any of us even climatologists?

 

You must have pretty bad balance. But yeah, those arguing that it'll just go away on its own are incredibly stupid, and part of the main problem of the extremism on this isue.

Hmm, evidence. Yep, they've got it. But you'll naturally dismiss it out of hand because it hasn't been peer reviewed. That's the problem here, not a lack of evidence (whether true or faulty). And then the question comes back to why it hasn't been peer-reviewed. Though I'm sure you'll say they don't dare because they're just plain wrong, it may not be that easy. With the Global Warming theory being mainstream, I'd bet that every single peer-reviewed journal is chock-full of Global Warming theorists.

I thought that's what this thread was about? As HB pointed out, none of us are climatologists, are we? And yet we're make some very sweeping claims. Hang your head in shame, you irresponsible young man.

Right, because everyone knows scientists love to be proven wrong. It doesn't damage their career or their egos one bit. Though you are right about science challenging long-held beliefs, the primary reason that's not a problem is because they were long-held. The people who came up with them...are dead now, and can't be hurt when someone discovers they were wrong. Meanwhile, those scientists putting their weight behind Global Warming being by Man's hand alone have plenty to lose if they're proven wrong right now.

And yet...they never show us (well, me anyway) that evidence. I've read plenty of articles on Global Warming, but I've never seen any proof to back up their assertions. At all. Much as you seem to be doing, in fact. Lots of talk about mountains of evidence and studies and how it's an absolutely sure thing, and yet...nothing about the reasoning behind it. Again, as HB said (though it makes me shudder that he's the reasonable one here), "We're all just repeating stuff that we have heard convincing sounding people tell us."

 

Felinoid: You need to get something straight. No serious scientist does non-peer reviewed work. When their work isn't peer reviewed, it is because their work is BAD SCIENCE.....and peer review would reveal that. This is why charlatans like Barry Sears, Dr. Atkins and Dr Peter J. D'Adamo don't submit their work for peer review. Their work is bad science......but bad science is enough to trick a layman when dressed up prettily enough. They sell themselves as mavericks....and we laymen buy their BS hook, line, and sinker (because contrarians and underdogs are sexy). It doesn't matter that Atkins' and Sears' dietary advice and "research" has been PROVEN false (not to mention very, very dangerous) or that D'Adamo's work has not only been shown to be utterly devoid of scientific merit but also that the very facts upon which he based his claim were already known to be completely false when he wrote his book. A layman isn't going to recognise that these people are just stringing a set of lies and half-truths and shodilly done, largely inconclusive, research together in order to sell a book.

If a scientist did a peer reviewed study indicating that Global Warming works differently than we initially understood it to work, scientists would then begin conducting other studies to either corroborate or disprove the initial study, rather than be threatened by it. Given the fact that the way science works is by trying to disprovean idea it is important to point out that our current stance on Global Warming stems from the failure of the scientific community to disprove it on a consistent basis for over 20 years. Scientists have been trying to disprove global warming.

You clearly don't understand the reasons behind peer review. You should look it up and learn something about the criterion used for judging each other's work before you start talking about it again. Peer review does not work the way you seem to think it works. They look for flaws in the data collection....flaws in the study's design.....gross misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the data. "I don't agree with this" or "this goes against everything we've believed about this subject until now" is not considered valid criticism of an article, study, or other such document.

The news media may go nuts over a single "revolutionary" study or article, but scientists don't work that way. The conclusions of a single study are worthless. Scientist form their opinions by repeatedly failing to disprove a conclusion over a long period of time. Your arguments about scientists being "threatened" by studies that lead to different conclusions than their own are simply not in step with the way the scientific community does its work and forms its conclusions.

[ June 24, 2006, 23:44: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

No, you need to get something straight. Nothing is ever always that simple. It just doesn't happen. No process is perfect, no person above reproach. Your blind faith in peer reviews smacks surprisingly of religion, and I refuse to debate you any further if you will not even keep an open mind to possibilities. Also, I will repeat that what is supposed to be does not always match up with what IS.

And again, this is exactly the problem! Not keeping an open mind to possibilities is the dumbest phenomenon on the face of the Earth, and it seems to have made the leap to the scientific community in this instance. To not even acknowledge the mere possibility that they may be wrong, without even backing up their own side, plagues both sides of the debate, and it positively disgusts me.

Apparently I haven't made this clear enough with the dozen or so hints I dropped. Show me. Seriously. SHOW ME! If it's true, I want to see it. I want to see...ANYTHING! Anything at all! All I've ever seen on this subject is rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric, and I'm f***ing sick of it. Show me proof, actual proof, one way or the other. No more talk about mountains of evidence or bad science. I want scientific studies, with data. Lots of them. NOW.

 

Ironically enough, the EPA has a very good site with lots of links to additional research as well. It's also very easy to navigate. Knock yourself out, Felinoid.

I don't have "blind faith" in peer review. I just understand that no serious scientist does not submit his work for peer review.....a fact which you seem unable to grasp. If work isn't peer reviewed, it means it is the opinon of just one man or just one group. Any work of value should be shared with the entire scientific community, since it takes hundreds of studies before an idea can gain acceptance by the scientific community. A single person or group will be unable to put together a large enough body of evidence and research to make a credible claim about pretty much anything. Non-peer reviewed work is worthless, because other scientists are not working to corroborate or disprove the work. If no one is following up on these peoples research (which is what happens when work isn't peer reviewed) there will never be sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion on such a matter.

Since you still have clearly not looked up what peer review really is, what it entails, and how it works, heres another link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

[ June 25, 2006, 00:27: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Thank you, and I hope they have links to discreditings of the other side too rather than just a bunch of identical studies.

EDIT: Hmph. UK to the rescue. The US sites I looked at were full of more of the same ridiculous extremism, but the UK sites showed a much more balanced approach which I genuinely appreciated. Still not much in the way of actual numbers aside from a single graph repeated ad nauseam, but the change in approach was quite refreshing. I hereby restrict my criticisms to US scientists rather than scientists as a whole. Unfortunately no examinations of the 'other side', though, but I was unable to get through even half the links owing to computer troubles. Perhaps tomorrow.

You haven't been listening at all, have you? I've already posited at least one situation where research might have been submitted but not reviewed. But I'm done with you if all you're going to do is beat the same drum over and over, despite it being a complete falsehood. I knew what peer review was long before I even entered this debate, and I know the loopholes. It is you, rather, that knows less than you should. Investigate, if you will, what really goes on with peer reviewing, not the ideal that you are clinging to. Open your mind, and you may not find all as you expected it.

EDIT: *sigh* Just keep beating that drum. Someday the skin will tear and you'll see the inside. I'd suggest that YOU look at the link, particularly the areas regarding fraud. It is not as you have painted it, and there are things that even Wiki doesn't mention.

[ June 25, 2006, 01:26: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

Just to point out how large your "vocal minority" is, only 1.5% of the scientists involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which agrees with the position of the rest of the Climate Change Scientists worldwide.....except for the afforementioned 1.5% of course) actually dissented their findings (which is to say that they did not agree with one conclusion or another.....not necessarily all, or even most, of their findings). To give some perspective, the percentage of Americans who think we faked the moon landing or "staged" 911 is actually higher than that.

EDIT: Peer review isn't perfect. On the other hand, when a scientist doesn't publish his scientific research in a scientific journal (which is essentially what peer review is) what you have is a very suspicious situation. Most peer reviewed work gets bad reviews here and there. Bad reviews don't mean that the work is necessarilly bad, or that the research group won't be able to get any more grants to continue its studies. (In fact, the anti-environmental lobby has a hell of a lot more funding than the environmental lobby does. Anyone trying to get grants to conduct studies debunking Global Warming will have money coming out his ears from corporate donors. Envioronmentalists, on the other hand, are among the most cash strapped activists around.)

When a film is not pre-screened for critics, how often is the film any good? Film companies do not pre-screen especially bad movies because their only chance of success is that everyone goes on opening night. The same happens with badly done or intentionally misleading scientific research. It gets immediately published in a book for public consumption or is handed straight to the mainstream media or to a conservative rag before other scientists are allowed to respond to it.

Even the PCRM (an organisation which argues that animal research does not have any real scientific merit and attempts to link a vegan diet to better health and a meat based diet to a myriad of modern illnesses like cancer and heart disease) submits its work for peer review. If a "fringe group" like PCRM gladly submits its work for peer review knowing that there will most assuredly be many detractors, then why isn't your 1.5% minority doing the same thing?

[ June 25, 2006, 22:18: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

You don't really need to be a climatologist to understand the gist of the papers, Fel. Sure someone from a specialized field will understand their field better, but if you read a paper with a good enough general knowledge you can tell what the conclusions are and the steps that were used to get to that conclusion. Some very prestigious journals like Science are more generalist, in that they publish papers from a wide number of fields.

So because you haven't read papers that are out there freely available to you, there's no evidence?

Same thing with tobacco and lung cancer. I mean, have you ever seen nicotene turn a lung cell cancerous? Huh? Huh? Obviously these medical researchers are just trying to get grants and they have a lot to lose, and if these *other* researchers hired by the tobacco industry, who certainly are as objective as these "scientists" with their "peer-reviewed" "religion," think there's no link, then hey we should "teach the debate" and not kowtow to extremists who want to tell us all how to live...

 

Yeah, but it would help to have access to the papers. I still haven't seen an actual paper, just summarizations.

No, but I've known enough "big fish" liars that when someone (or some group) repeatedly boasts about studies while at the same time refusing to show you, it does make me a bit suspicious as to their existence.

Actually, yes. There are plenty of pictures freely available of just that. Of course, it still takes trust that what they're showing you is what they say they're showing you. And believe me that there are still people out there who don't believe that tobacco products will give you cancer. I've met a couple, in fact.

But that's a rather bad example as there's no second possible cause. If there were arguing over whether it was tobacco products or cellphone radiation, then it might be more apt.

 

no one has refused to show you any evidence, Fel. You're just too lazy to seek it out.

how much evidence do you need? people have measured arctic ice, done ice core samples, run computer simulations... aw heck why do I bother....

 

Yes, that's the REAL sign that end of the world is nigh.

 

Because the view of the lone scientist or dissenter is a romantic one, perhaps? In the movies and books, so often the one person speaknig contrary to "everyone else" is all but correct? Or perhaps because we just don't want to believe in the responsibility of our having messed up the world for future generations.

 

@ Drew & Bion,

Please provide one link each (minimum) to some of this research you're talking about - you're discrediting yourselves by not doing so after repeated requests. Fair is fair, and you can't tell Fel he's too lazy to find this apparantly abundant information when you can't seem to be buggered yourselves, right?

This is from someone who's agreed with you both solidly throughout this thread, by the way. You've both presented excellent arguements that I'd hate to see lose face.

 

@DR:
I, uh, already provided that link. The EPA site to which I gladly linked several posts back not only provides lots of info on global warming and how we've reached our conclusions about it but also links to a great deal of other pertinent research on the subject. Felinoid, and anyone else who is interested, is more than welcome to check there. If that isn't enough information, I highly reccomend google; the very helpful tool I used to find the EPA web page in the first place.

Actually, the viewpoint that Global Warming is a hoax or a natural phenomenon is mostly restricted to the US. You are right about the fact that most of the extremists on the issue are American. You're just wrong about who the extremists are.

[ June 27, 2006, 01:28: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

On the consensus of scientists on human-caused climate change.

Geez, even check Wikipedia for citations...

 

Ok then, I'd thought you were referring to more than just the EPA. That'll do.