NOTE: This originally appeared in a much longer blog. I have lightly edited it and given it its own blog to improve readability.
Let's begin by looking at the global-warming denialist canard concerning scientific consensus. In his response to an earlier blog jackbenimble said:
I am not a scientist so I think my best response is to let real scientists who disagree with you speak for themselves. About 650 of them have signed on to this report and I believe they address and rebutt every one of your points above. These are some very impressive people with very impressive credentials including some Nobel Lauterates and many other award winning and thoroughly published scientists. A bunch of them (52 I think) are former IPCC scientists who no longer buy into the AGW hypothesis.
But the Minority Report I linked to above (and which you should read) shredded his arguments. I don't think I was dished up a cold plate of reality even slightly.
I think Darwins Beagle should explain why he is a better scientist and more believeable then the many Nobel Lauterestes, Award Winning Scientists, Department Heads for Major Universities and others who voiced their dissent in his report. There were 650 very respected scientists that signed that report. Something like 30,000 signed the Petition Project of which 9000 were PHDs which I linked to in another recent blog. How many scientists were involved in writing the IPCC summary on global warming? About 50.
Let's combine these with a responsejackbenimble used to mai's blog on global warming.
The appeal to scientific consensus is a joke. Consensus has no place in science. Science is not democratic. It only takes one scientist to prove the consensus wrong and most of the world's great scientists were great specifically because they rejected the consensus viewpoint. There are large numbers of scientists who do not agree with AGW and a growing body of scientists that used to believe who are becoming skeptics as they examine the growing evidence that the AGW models don't work. Evidence is what matters and there is not a shred of evidence that global warming is caused by human emmissions of C02.
I believe it is fair to characterize this canard as saying that (1) truth is not determined by consensus therefore scientific consensus isn't important, and (2) there isn't a scientific consensus anyway. The first place I heard part one of the claim was from author, Michael Crichton:
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period... I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way...
Michael Crichton wrote some good books. He was the author of JURASSIC PARK. He was a well-known global warming denier as well. This statement was written as a direct challenge to global warming scientists. It has to be one of the most dishonest ones I have read and I was greatly disappointed in Crichton when I read it.
It is true that consensus does not equal truth in science and no scientist has said that it does. In general scientists find the consensus argument to be offensive. It is an argument from authority ... believe this because a bunch of other smart people believe it. No scientist worth his salt accepts it ... what is important is the evidence not the people who believe it. But in global warming the consensus argument is not aimed at other scientists, it is aimed at members of the general public who are either unable or unwilling to invest the time to learn the evidence. For them an argument from authority is the only one that can be made.
Global warming denialists have come up with a plethora of ridiculous arguments (many of which I have documented). Mainstream climatologists have refuted these arguments with evidence, but all the general public hears is that there is dissention. When global warming scientists claim there is a consensus (and there is) the statement they are making is that the claims one often hears of dissention within appropriate scientific ranks is simply not true. They are not claiming that global warming is right simply because the vast majority of scientists believe it. They are claiming that a vast majority of scientists WHO ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE EVIDENCE believe it. Thus, if you are not inclined to learn the actual data who should you believe ... the vast majority of scientists familar with the evidence or some splinter group mostly composed of people who have never done anything in climatology? Hopefully the obvious answer is the former and not the latter.
So when Crichton says that what is important is reproducible results and implies that the mainstream climatologists don't have it, he is being grossly dishonest. They are the only ones who have it ... and they have it in abundance. Years of research have confirmed Arrhenius 1896 findings. Few things have been more reproduced than that. The paleoclimate data comes from a consensus of several techniques all reinforcing each other. That is reproducible data. Atmospheric CO2 readings have been taken daily since 1960. How much more reproducible results do you want?
Perhaps the denialists sense that there is hypocrisy in the argument that consensus science is not important and that is why they add the second part ... there isn't a consensus in the first place. Is there really a consensus? Before I go into that, let's stress what is important in a scientific consensus. That is an overwhelming agreement among active scientists IN THE APPROPRIATE FIELD.
There is a creationist canard. Fred Hoyle was a distinguished astronomer. But he was a critic of biological evolution. He did not believe that it could produce complicated structures His famous quip was that biological evolution was tantamount to a hurricane going through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747. Hoyle may have been a distinguished astronomer, but he new nothing about biology. Biologists have never claimed that evolution assembles complex structures from scratch. It modifies things and so gradually builds complexity. The evidence says that. So his critique was not very appropriate and biologists have almost universally dismissed that criticism, because they DO know the evidence.
The same goes with global warming science. Freeman Dyson is a distinguished theoretical physicist. But he has no expertise in climatology. When he claims that global warming is not global he makes his claim in ignorance of the evidence. Just like Hoyle with evolution, he should know better but he makes the claim anyway. Climatologists reject his claim because they DO know the evidence.
Scientists have no magic powers. A scientist doing research in one field has no claim to expertise in another field. He can object all he wants, but that objection does not necessarily qualify as dissention in the field.
Climatology is a growing field of scientific endeavor. It therefore has a lot of scientists in its ranks. Just as in biology there will always be some members who dissent. But a consensus does not, and should not mean a 100% agreement. It means a very high level of agreement. And that is what you get in climatology. I will substantiate this claim in succeeding blogs.
Using a phrase like 'Global warming denialists' to describe skeptics is intentionally misleading. Particularly when applied to a person such as Michael Chrichton. Far from DENYING the greenhouse gas efficacy of CO2 his objection is against the lies and hype that have been perpetrated in the politicization of the theory. He admits that it has an effect, but expects that effect to be no greater and perhaps less than the warming affects of phenomena such as solar activity, and the 'heat island' effect of large cities.
The full speech from which your quote was pulled:
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
His argument for skepticism concerning GW:
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html
Also your ad hominem attacks on all of the skeptics you mention here are an interesting choice since you are also not a climatologist.
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
--Andre Gide