The actual common sense position against AGW is that it's unlikely that the earth, after aeons of huge changes and cycles, has suddenly developed an instability.
Since they can't solve the relevant physics equations (the Navier Stokes equations, at bottom), climate modellers pull an equation out of their asses that they can solve, and solve that instead.
Here the theory of evolution kicks in (we believe in evolution, right?): those models that predict doom get funding, and those that don't predict doom don't get funding but wind up in the punched card recycle bin and are not heard from again. So we get a population of doom-predicting models, which, for all their busy proponents, are based on climate hand-waving and curve-fitting.
Bayesian statistics strongly favor the evolution theory over the runaway instability theory, by several million to one. This aligns, unsurprisingly, with common sense.
Incidentally, mathematical fact, you can't tell a trend from a cycle with an amount of data that's short compared to the cycle; the point of the hockey stick was to get around that by showing explosive growth, but the hockey stick has met its demise in data hacking. So there's zero, zilch, evidence that if the earth is warming, that it's not a normal cycle.
And if a cycle, it can't be man-caused.
Politicians would like the control and the money, however. This is where lies come in, followed by bad ideas.
There is no reasoning with these "true believers."
No, I do not mean Christian(ist)s, I mean Liberals in the Obama Administration.
6/15/10 6:00 PM
The actual common sense position against AGW is that it's unlikely that the earth, after aeons of huge changes and cycles, has suddenly developed an instability.
Since they can't solve the relevant physics equations (the Navier Stokes equations, at bottom), climate modellers pull an equation out of their asses that they can solve, and solve that instead.
Here the theory of evolution kicks in (we believe in evolution, right?): those models that predict doom get funding, and those that don't predict doom don't get funding but wind up in the punched card recycle bin and are not heard from again. So we get a population of doom-predicting models, which, for all their busy proponents, are based on climate hand-waving and curve-fitting.
Bayesian statistics strongly favor the evolution theory over the runaway instability theory, by several million to one. This aligns, unsurprisingly, with common sense.
Incidentally, mathematical fact, you can't tell a trend from a cycle with an amount of data that's short compared to the cycle; the point of the hockey stick was to get around that by showing explosive growth, but the hockey stick has met its demise in data hacking. So there's zero, zilch, evidence that if the earth is warming, that it's not a normal cycle.
And if a cycle, it can't be man-caused.
Politicians would like the control and the money, however. This is where lies come in, followed by bad ideas.
6/15/10 6:01 PM