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An idea worth spreading

The scientific method isn't applied with enough rigor to the world's most important questions. Scholars and laypeople alike tend to continue believing that certain hypotheses (H) are viable even after empirical data has disconfirmed the Hs' most important predictions, or after the reasoning on which they were founded has crumbled in light of new evidence. There are several "traps" that make this occur: The H is so terrifying that we panic about it rather than investigate it; the H is so uplifting or politically convenient that we don't want to believe otherwise; it's null H threatens to undermine our sacred ideological convictions, so we feel the H "must" be true; our career, community, or lifestyle is dependent on the H being accepted, so to admit that it's false would be to admit that we need to make major adjustments to our lives; the null H is too counterintuitive to take seriously; it seems that every credible expert believes the H to be true; the people we trust think H is true.

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• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jul 18 2012: If anything I've said sounds ideological, I must have failed to express myself clearly. I'm promoting WUWT because it provides important perspectives that are too often overlooked, and it calls attention to papers in the peer-reviewed literature that you won't hear about on the news.
  
  If you want to see the "plenty of scientists" let's start with a compilation of statements either personally made or formally endorsed by over 1,000 scientists that express dissent over the mainstream AGW position:
  http://ec.libsyn.com/p/b/f/6/bf663fd2376ffeca/2010_Senate_Minority_Report.pdf?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cc8532d9cd5c7107&c_id=2869473
  
  Also, The "Global Warming Petition Project" claims that over 9,000 Ph.D scientists have signed a statement that "there is no convincing evidence" to support the catastrophic AGW perspective. But I have my doubts about the credibility of this petition, so I'd rather stick with the document above instead.
• +3

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jul 18 2012: This is the most important scientific issue humanity has ever dealt with. What's worse: asking relevant questions about it, or ridiculing people who do?
• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 23 2012: [Sigh]. The bottom line that there's no evidence to compellingly suggest that any of the authors of those papers are biased by ideological or financial interests. And even if they were, that's largely what the peer-review process is designed to correct for.
  
  Roy, do you thoroughly vet the financial and ideological interests of every scientist and journal that promotes the alarmist narrative? Do you think it would be difficult to "link" James Hansen with environmental activists?

• A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 22 2012: Only about 14% of the papers were published in Energy and Environment. E & E is indeed recognized as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, as documented here:
  
  http://www.populartechnology.net/2010/04/correcting-misinformation-about-journal.html
  
  This idea of the researchers being "linked to Exxon" is silly, as the following rebuttal from the researchers themselves makes clear:
  
  http://www.populartechnology.net/2011/05/are-skeptical-scientists-funded-by.html
  
  And even if you do suspect these authors of being biased by financial interests, you still have to acknowledge that the whole point of the peer-review process is to allow other scientists - who presumably have different personal interests and knowledge - to attest to the credibility of the paper before it is published.

• A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 20 2012: Great. These figures look consistent with the graphs on climate4you.com, which show a general warming trend in the past 130 or so, with warming prior to industrialization (i.e. approx. 1950) being similar to the warming after industrialization.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 19 2012: Here's a catalogue of over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers that in one way or another cast doubt on alarmist narratives regarding anthropogenic climate change. (Many are available in their entirety as PDFs.)
  
  http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
  
  It seriously is time for people in Hansen's camp to stop accusing "skeptics" or "deniers" of being "anti-science" or anything like that. The demonstrable fact of the matter is that there are plenty of scientists, such as most of the authors of those articles, and other scientifically literate people whose interpretation of the evidence lead them to the conclusion that CO2 emissions are not dangerous.
  
  See also, wattsupwiththat.com, which won the Bloggie award for Best Science Weblog in 2011.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 19 2012: Just go to this cite: http://climate4you.com/ ; click Global Temperature; and scroll down.
  
  You can see a bunch of different temperature records from different sources that pretty much all confirm Mr. Goddard's statement that there has been no warming in the past 12 years (or so).
  
  When it comes to discussing the evidence regarding AGW, pictures (i.e. graphs) really are worth a thousand words.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Jun 19 2012: Is there any reason to believe that the times when CO2 concentration was higher and when there were no permanent ice sheets were in any sense "bad" times for the "planet" or "life"? Is there any reason to believe, for instance, that humanity would have terrible difficulty coping with a PETM-like climate?
• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Apr 13 2012: Harald, you are really grasping at straws now. There are hundreds of studies summarized in each of the sources that I linked. Might some of them have been irrelevant to my point? Sure. But there are hundreds of studies there, and the vast majority directly support my point. You'll probably be more convinced by the peer reviewed paper I cited than the page from co2science.org, which I admit needs a little work.
  
  Just to make it overwhelmingly clear that I am correct on this simple point, here are links to some additional peer-reviewed studies which all conclude that increases in CO2 concentrations promote plant life in the real world. Some of these links only provide abstracts.
  
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15091762
  The second sentence of this one's abstract is "Plant growth is nearly always stimulated by elevation of CO(2)"
  
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0168192394900256
  
  http://afrsweb.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/64200500/csr/ResearchPubs/rogers/rogers_99a.pdf
  
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378377483900756
  
  Now, Harald, do you agree that the currently available evidence compellingly shows that plants flourish more when the concentration of CO2 in their atmosphere increases (say, at least up to 500 ppm)?
• +1

  A reply on Talk: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change

  Apr 13 2012: Harold, Please look at all of this data from CO2 increases in natural ecosystems.
  http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/photo/ecosystems.php
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/1514718?seq=9
  These data show that CO2 means more plant growth in the real world. There's really no "thinking" involved. It's simply a matter of increasing CO2 in a natural setting and observing the outcome. I don't see how you can argue with me over this.
  
  You have no idea how frustrating it is to make a statement, support it by linking to evidence from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, and then be called ignorant for it.