Brian,

I have looked over your email exchange with Steve Gregory and from your comments you give the impression that you believe in truth by the numbers. Whichever position has the predominant number of adherents is the truth. We have discussed this before. That is not the way science is done, and you know it. 

We don't need to go back in history as far as Gallileo to find examples of truth by the numbers. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded recently to two doctors who had the courage to face down all kinds of opposition from the medical establishment when they proposed that stomach ulcers are due to a bacterium and not stress and diet, which I'm sure you will recall was the reigning paradigm. The medical establishment has a name for people who challenge their dogma: quack. No doubt some of those are wrong and, if their motive is to increase their income they deserve the name. But how to distingish between a quack and a pioneer? 

It took these two "quacks" much longer to convince the establishment than it did to do the research. One went so far as to deliberately expose himself to the bacteria, get the ulcers, and then cure himself with an antibiotic. We can applaud such bravery in the pursuit of truth by people we now recognize were indeed pioneers. But if it weren't for entrenched bias, such heroic measures wouldn't have been necessary.

In fact, it's remarkable that they were even able to get their research published, because so many journal editors also believe in truth by the numbers. Even those who don't know that they are at risk of losing their position if they allow contrary articles on politicized topics. The fact that there were 928 papers saying that humans are causing global warming and zero saying the opposite says far more about bias than about the putative consensus. Perhaps the editor too believes that anyone who disagrees with the current dogma is obviously incompetent and undeserving of being called a scientist - a naysayer of the same ilk as people who believe that the world is flat or that the sun orbits the earth. That saves time - just dismiss automatically a contrary contribution without even reading it. That instant rejection chills any further contributions, so editors can claim that no one has even submitted a contrary paper for a long time.

Appeals to consensus and use of ridicule to suppress disagreement always suggest to me a weak argument, not a strong one. So does saying "It's all very complicated - trust the experts." So does a pronouncement from the AAAS that there is no disagreement among climate scientists, when the Fraser Institute report constitutes just such disagreement. The AAAS is saying in effect, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." If there were no disagreement, why would the AAAS or any other organization even consider making such a pronouncement? Don't they trust the press and ordinary citizens to be able to assess the credentials and arguments of the naysayers? In any case, as you know, the way science is done is to show the flaws in the data or reasoning of the opposing view, not stoop to ad hominem attacks.

I have no doubt that climate research and modeling is complex. But the underlying question is not complex at all: Why should we believe that there is any sort of causative connection between anthropogenic CO2 and climate change? The very complexity of the issue makes it seem naïve that all of the other obvious possibilities together could not possibly account for it better. 

Water is a greenhouse gas present in the atmosphere in quantities orders of magnitude greater than CO2, so to accept the anthropogenic theory it is necessary to believe that the amount of water present as vapor and as clouds has not changed over centuries by even a tiny amount. That could be true, I suppose, but since it seems unlikely, people who want us to believe it owe us an explanation, not attempts to impress us. 

Similarly, why should we believe that the output of the sun has remained invariant, or the amount of dust in the atmosphere? Let the dogmatists offer explanations for known previous climate changes that could not have been due to humans, and convince us that none of those causes is operative now. 

Brian, it is clear that you believe that climate change is due to humans, even to the point of making personal decisions on how you spend your money. But like consensus, your fervency and sincerity are not reasons for anyone else to believe that the thing you believe is actually true. Isn't it possible that you have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by people with an agenda - people whom you admire and whose bias you do not perceive?

And since you regard it as acceptable to question the output of anyone funded by an oil company, let me question the objectivity of anyone who accepts funds from any organization that has announced a position on the matter, including environmental activist organizations. As for government funding, isn't there a built-in bias for a researcher to show that there is a problem - that deserves further funding - than that the problem is more perception than fact? 

And it isn't just funding. With the AAAS making its pronouncements, it can be dangerous to one's career to take the wrong position, particularly when you are unable to publish in scientific journals. There aren't many heros in the world willing to take that risk, when there's so much support money available to those who toe the party line. So I'm not sure it's in your best interests to challenge the objectivity of the naysayers due to their source of funding. They know they are taking a risk the "yea-sayers" are not, and will have whatever they manage to make public scrutinized for any possible weakness that could be used to discredit the entire publication.

Brian, do you take any prescription drugs that got onto the market due to research funded by the drug companies? How biased was that research, given the huge amount of money at stake? If you are looking for an issue that has personal significance, may I suggest that rather than going with the medical consensus you do your own investigation into any drug you take. You may be able to postpone sucking dandelions by the roots.

Gordon Davy