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Is climatology a pseudo-science?
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/01/28/is-climatology-a-pseudoscience/ ^ | WM Briggs

Posted on 01/28/2008 6:28:24 AM PST by mattstat

The short answer, I will disappoint many of you by saying, is no. Like I wrote before, climatologists are generally nice people genuinely struggling with understanding the immense complexities of the oceanic-atmospheric (and space!) system. It might be that many of them are misleading themselves by custom tailoring models to show them what they expect (or desire?) to see, but this has not reached a level where it is done with intent. Most mistakes that are made are honest ones. And it is also true that much has been learned while examining climate models. Still, while scientists are in general noble creatures, there does exists the possibility of them sliding into the abyss.

So suppose, if you are able, that significant man-made climate change is false; further, that it cannot happen, and that all changes to the climate system are due to external forcings, such as those caused by changes in solar output. Just suppose all this is true for the sake of argument.

Now put yourself in the place of a climatologist, one of the many hundreds, in fact, who was involved with the IPCC and so shared in that great validator, the Nobel Peace Prize*.

(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: agw; climatology; globalwarming; parapsychology; pseudoscience
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1 posted on 01/28/2008 6:28:24 AM PST by mattstat
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To: mattstat

Climatology is one of the many fields of Scientology.


2 posted on 01/28/2008 6:33:43 AM PST by counterpunch (Mike Huckabee — The Religious Wrong)
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To: mattstat

It’s not science, it’s religion. Just beleeeeeeve.........


3 posted on 01/28/2008 6:37:09 AM PST by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: mattstat

More like sociology.


4 posted on 01/28/2008 6:37:36 AM PST by onedoug
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To: mattstat
"Climatology" doesn't adhere to the rigorous testing standards of the scientific method. The use of the word "consensus" to describe the position of the scientific community on climate change was the biggest indicator of all (there is no need to seek "consensus" in science, if your methods are valid and your results can be replicated).

If "climatology" were really scientific, don't y'all think Al Gore and the IPCC would have won a Nobel Prize in a scientific field instead of in the one area that is -- by definition -- overtly political?

5 posted on 01/28/2008 6:40:35 AM PST by Alberta's Child (I'm out on the outskirts of nowhere . . . with ghosts on my trail, chasing me there.)
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To: mattstat

Not so much a pseudo science as a pseudo religion.


6 posted on 01/28/2008 6:44:10 AM PST by arthurus (Better to fight them OVER THERE than to have to fight them OVER HERE!)
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To: mattstat
Is climatology a pseudo-science?

No, but honest climatologists are not predicting global warming either. It is the Al Gore crowd that wants us to think that climatology = prediction of man-made climate change.

7 posted on 01/28/2008 6:48:13 AM PST by Smile-n-Win (Everything that breathes emits CO2. Anti-carbon is anti-life.)
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To: mattstat
My Dutch friend folded her arms and announced “I BELIVE in global warming”. Her reasons for BELIVING was because when she was a child she skated on the frozen canals in Amsterdam and today they don’t freeze.

I folded my arms and said “I believe in the sun”.

8 posted on 01/28/2008 6:48:25 AM PST by Ditter
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To: mattstat

Climatology is a real science. Unfortunately many of it’s practicioners have become pseudo-scientists.


9 posted on 01/28/2008 7:01:32 AM PST by Hacklehead (Crush the liberals, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the hippies.)
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To: mattstat

Whether a field is psuedo-science or not has nothing to do with whether its practitioners are nice or noble.

mlo


10 posted on 01/28/2008 7:03:31 AM PST by mlo
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To: mattstat

He left out (5) Fudge the data.


11 posted on 01/28/2008 7:06:49 AM PST by palmer
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To: Hacklehead
Climatology is a real science. Unfortunately many of it’s practicioners have become pseudo-scientists.

I'd say a very large portion of them have become slaves to government funding which requires them to produce pseudoscience.

12 posted on 01/28/2008 7:07:06 AM PST by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: mattstat

Although there are many “climatologists” playing like they’re scientists...giving climatology a bad name...climatology is a bona fide science....the study of average weather patterns over time.


13 posted on 01/28/2008 7:09:03 AM PST by ElectricStrawberry (1/27 Wolfhounds...cut in half during the Clinton years.)
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To: mattstat
Until climatologists can accurately predict this afternoons weather, I take everything they say with a grain of salt.
14 posted on 01/28/2008 7:23:12 AM PST by svcw (The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.)
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To: Ditter
“I BELIVE in global warming”

And that statement explains why GW is faith-based, rather than science-based.

People wouldn't ask you, for instance, if you believe in gravity. Or if you believe that pi=22/7.

I think that 20 years (maybe less!) or so from now, people will look back on this hysteria and laaaaaaugh. If we haven't been taxed and regulated out of existence by GW opportunist politicians.

15 posted on 01/28/2008 7:28:59 AM PST by wbill
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To: mattstat
Is medical “science” a pseudo-science?

No but that doesn’t keep tens/hundreds of thousands of supposely “learned”, intelligent practitioners from constantly being DEAD-WRONG on things like: “Everyone knows that butter is bad for you but margarine is good for you...”, “Everyone knows that fluoride fights cavities and is good for your teeth...”, and on and on...

16 posted on 01/28/2008 7:48:20 AM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: ElectricStrawberry
....the study of average weather patterns over time Whoops! That little part of the science is what the "religious fanatics" in the field keep ignoring.
17 posted on 01/28/2008 7:49:40 AM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: mattstat

I’m not sure I agree with the article. If I weed out all of the hype that is generated by the MSM, politicians and arm-chair environmentalists, there is still a noticable element of bias amongst climatologists.

For example, if you research who is performing the “peer reviews” of the published work of climatologists, you’ll find it to be somewhat incestious. It also has become exceedingly difficult to publish papers critical of AGW.

If you review the quality control of the ground-based temperature measurements, you’d be shocked at how anyone can claim to ascertain a fraction of a degree increase over any length of time. The data is largely junk, but in general climatologists won’t tell you that their models should be taken with a grain of salt.


18 posted on 01/28/2008 7:50:09 AM PST by kidd
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To: mattstat
Is climatology a pseudo-science?

There are honest climatologists who employ the scientific approach. And there are dishonest ones advancing a political agenda.

Slamming climatology for global warming is like blaming guns for committing crimes.

19 posted on 01/28/2008 8:00:00 AM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: mattstat

Climatology is not so much a science as it is an application of mathematics.


20 posted on 01/28/2008 8:01:12 AM PST by jmyrlefuller
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