Ajax wrote on Oct 20
th, 2013 at 10:29am:
Phemanderac wrote on Oct 19
th, 2013 at 12:53pm:
"
con·sen·sus
[kuhn-sen-suhs] Show IPA
noun, plural con·sen·sus·es.
1.
majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2.
general agreement or concord; harmony.
You did say, some sort of an agreement initially.
That said. I think that there are many who would and do argue that science has in fact done this, please understand that is an observation and not an opinion. I acknowledge that there are many who would say they haven't.
Of course, for what you suggest to actually occur that would mean a whole lot of non scientists who have a huge investment now in this debate would be out of the picture. Of itself that might not be such a bad thing.
And of course, the other significant barrier to your suggestion is that scientific research relies on funding at some level. Demonstrably the funding body can have an immense impact on the final findings, whether that is Government funding or a private industry. I think this is why the peer reviewed system is generally relied on, because that requires a bit of a "consensus" from a number of scientists who, by virtue of being a group, have a more widely varied range of "funders". Admittedly it is still not fool proof, but then anything with people involved is generally not going to be fool proof, possibly because our one consistency is a demonstrated capacity to produce fools (an observation, not a slight or comment about anyone particularly).
Arguably, that does not give much support for simply dumping the IPCC because having been discredited presently at least is merely opinion. It will always depend on who you talk to as to how much credibility either the IPCC has, or its detractors. That is what stands out in this entire debate to me. Neither side on the coal face at least appears particularly respectful of the other team, or their views, perspectives or even the information they have relied on to reach their conclusions.
This entire debate has occurred several times in our recent history and, sadly, the stand out thing is that the real underlying issue is about making money. I would directly site the tobacco industry and the struggle to convince people about the now accepted harmful effects of carcinogenic substances used in tobacco products, Asbestos and the now accepted and demonstrable harm that can do and Lead in petrol and a range of other "consumable" products as three prime examples of the power of making money trumping that old chestnut scientific understanding, at least for a while. They are prime examples though of demonstrably harmful human interactions that, in effect, were allowed to propagate because of the huge amounts of money they could generate and, even in the face of pointed and seemingly irrefutable evidence, were able to argue some campaign to protect their profits over human health.
Now, AGW may or may not be the next "tobacco/lead/asbestos" on the table, I don't know. I am concerned (and apologies for any offense that this comment causes) that the debate is shaping up the same as all three of the above ones. The significant difference here it would seem though is that, if AGW is in fact real and if we are harming our environment critically, then it won't be individuals dying horribly from Cancer, Asbestosis or Lead poisoning (as disgusting as that is) but entire nations potentially, entire species including our own even - yeah I know that is an absolute worst case scenario (at least one has to hope it is).
You have missed the point once again.
Its not about getting scientists from both sides to a meeting every 2 months or so.
Its about getting scientists from both sides to work together on the science of Anthropogenic global warming.
That would be research worth following.
If I didn't know better I would have thought this response was simply being ironic.
I didn't miss any point by the way, and, I would suggest respectfully you demonstrate at least two or more examples that are irrefutable demonstrations of my "missing the point" as you infer that this is something I have done repeatedly.
I would also suggest (respectfully) that the "point" was possibly not articulated all that clearly or succinctly, because, the very first statement clearly articulated "reaching an agreement" which, by definition (it was the definition of the word consensus which I posted) is a consensus. How was that missing the point exactly? Getting "scientists from both sides to work together" is an entirely different "point" to that which you originally articulated. The "meeting every two months" bit by the way was an
example given in the dictionary and NOT my suggestion, just by the by.
As
nice and Peachey as your suggestion sounds, I reckon the mechanisms are already in place for "getting together", however, they are not utilised by either "side" presently, because it would seem each team has too much invested in their individual cause to be interested in meeting halfway...
Please refrain from accusing me of missing points when the points are not clearly articulated...
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