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"But at the same time his willingness to forgive departures from scientific standards in support of causes and people that he believes in makes him no different from his opponents who do the exact same thing.

In the comments on Dave’s post climate scientist Andrew Dessler tries to gently make this exact same point:"

No, Andrew Dessler's point was that the IPCC has a some sort of corner on science. What Dave Roberts was responding to was this (hilarious) comment by Andrew Dessler:

"The vast majority of scientists support this viewpoint. Not only are there not three sides to this debate, there are not even two. There is only one: the IPCC's. It presents the only valid picture of what the scientific community thinks about the science of climate change."

"But we should remember that we talk, debate, and argue about climate change because it matters,..."

No, I talk, debate and argue about climate change because it doesn't matter. It keeps people from discussing subjects that do matter.

Re: Dr Dessler's gentle counterpoint of mistakenly granting scientific weight to policy wonks like VP Gore (catastrophic AGW) and Sen Inhofe (catastrophic AGW fraud) -- a less famous (and apologies for a somewhat more caustic) version of that point from 17-DEC: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=965 (post 185*).

Regarding yours and Dr Dessler's more balanced concerns, I wonder any of the RC contributing scientists voiced discomfort(?) over the popular assignment of scientific merit to VP Gore's pronouncements? I know many there have expressed such concern over Dr Crichton's anti-AGW pronouncements.

* Sorry 'bout that "n" typo.

I have to go with Mark on this one. Maybe. There is a strong possibility he's right - and in fact when put in perspective, it's a strong "probability" - especially in terms of the burgeoning population and this:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0530earthgreen.html

It might even be good for Homo sapiens, like it always has in the past.

Of course as alarmists continue to band together and say it will be bad, any problem with weather will become fodder for blame on technology, and problems with weather will continue to grow as our population grows into ever more weather prone areas.

Will this self fulfilling prophecy lead us into another dark age? Certainly the climate sciences' "circling the wagons" is not helping us out of that one. No vision in that circle.

P.S. I think it is important to answer the question of "Does the End Justify the Means" with the corollary "The End *Includes* the Means" Is that what we want science to become?

Since cut and paste is easy, I'll just crosspost what I said to Roberts over on his blog, and then repeated over on my blog:

David -

The problem with this line of argument is that as soon as you sanction what Al Gore does here, you've sanctioned a general type of argument: "I believe, in this particular area of scientific uncertainty, the likely outcome of ongoing research is likely to be X, and we should therefore base our policy response on X." I don't think Inhofe is the best example, but the case of Benny Peiser's obsession with solar influence might be a better one. Benny's happy to cherrypick research on one side of this question (big solar influence on warming) and use it, based on his years of expertise, to argue that that's where he thinks the science is heading. As soon as you sanction Gore's use of the tactic, you've no grounds on which to argue against Benny's use of the same line of argument.

That's precisely the recipe for gridlock on "scientized" policy debates, which Dan Sarewitz has so eloquently demonstrated:

http://www.cspo.org/ourlibrary/articles/EnvironControv.ht...

Andrew Dessler is absolutely correct that we really have no choice in these debates but to try our best to identify and work within IPCC-style consensus.

Unfortunately, Sarewitz's argument and my own personal experience as a journalist covering these controversies convinces me that the sort of thing we're talking about here - picking outliers that support one's value positions - is an inevitable state of affairs. Your (Roberts') willingness to do it, and endorse it, despite the obvious sophistication of your (Roberts') understanding of the issues, is one more bit of empirical evidence in support of what Sarewitz is saying.

Hi John

Alright then: Yes, I am very interested in research that focuses on the sun's contribution to climate change. Who isn't? That's why I occassionally post new research papers on CCNet. I am not aware, though, that I have ever commented on these papers, one way or another.

Have I cherry-picked papers? I'm sure I have. Who hasn't? But I have never argued or even implicated "that that's where [I think] the science is heading." The truth is that, as the editor of CCNet, I am mainly monitoring research and controversies I am interested in rather than predicting where they are heading.

Any other concern?

Benny -

I'm happy to stand corrected. Perhaps this isn't the best example. Your practice of essentially never commenting on the content in CCNet forces readers like myself to infer your views, which is what I've done here based on your serial cherry-picking of the solar-climate literature. As you've said before, "I have freely admitted my personal biases which are reflected in the way CCNet is edited." My inference about your biases in this case was based on the way CCNet is edited, and I apologize for drawing a conclusion that is apparently inaccurate. Perhaps you could clarify for us your views on the topic in question? (No need to bog down this thread with it, given how tangential it is to the topic at hand. A CCNet post expressing your own views would be helpful.)

Speaking of cherry picking, there should be some sort of award for the millionth peer reviewed climage change paper. It should be coming up really soon...

That was somewhat tongue in cheek. It's no doubt true, since it's well over half a million now.

The point, however, is that *everybody* is cherry picking their references.

liked the quiz (I guessed wrongly) because all of the options seemed plausible, which in itself I think is very revealing about the way the climate change "debate" has evolved. A good article by Arnold Kling http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010407A discusses the manner with which different audiences handle their biases towards new information and has a reference to an interesting paper on 'motivated skepticism' which also is very germane to this topic, especially when one views the responses and their tone as posted on this site, versus Climate Audit versus Real Climate.

Not only is "everybody cherry picking their references", but also cheerfully accepting the egregiously politicised Summary For Policy Makers of IPCC rather than read the much more nuanced, and less confident, body of the report. I am surprised that this aspect is so often allowed to pass without comment when IPCC reports are being discussed.

Add to that a clearly deliberate strategy of getting a large body of peer reviewed papers out (as Wegman explains, the "peers" reviewing are hardly independent!) and claiming a "Consensus of scientists" agree.

There is, and can be, no choice. We must focus determinedly on the science to figure out what is really going on. However, it is abundantly clear by now that we are dealing with a very complex system that we don't really know very much about.

Let us also remember that David Roberts and Grist have a direct financial stake in taking the extremist position. Their ability to raise funds from readers is much easier when readers are scared silly. If you're going to fault financial entanglements on the right, you have to do it on the left as well, and Grist has a big one.