Legal verdict: Manmade global warming science doesn’t withstand
scrutiny

By Lawrence Solomon June 6, 2010 – 10:47 pm

A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the
University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has
concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming
proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.

The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor
and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every
major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work
by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various
rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize
what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even
disagreements.”

Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global
warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC
publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment
scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited
climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment
does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to
comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined
policy preference.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-
made global warming, can be found here,
http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf

Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe the author of
The Deniers.

On Jun 10, 12:40*am, Leon wrote:
Legal verdict: Manmade global warming science doesn’t withstand
scrutiny

By Lawrence Solomon *June 6, 2010 – 10:47 pm

A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the
University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has
concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming
proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.

The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor
and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every
major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work
by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various
rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize
what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even
disagreements.”

Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global
warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC
publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment
scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited
climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment
does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to
comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined
policy preference.”

The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-
made global warming, can be found here,http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf

Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe the author of
The Deniers.

The mechanisms behind all this are extraordinarily complicated,for
instance,the 'scientific method' itself which is giving rise to the
speculative notion of human control over global temperatures is
actually following its own rules thereby leading to a predictable
stalemate which is extremely unhealthy for everyone concerned despite
the fact that some people just like to argue for the sake of arguing
and like to live off the fumes of discontent.Under normal
circumstances,the empirical method usually gives terrestrial sciences
a wide berth,preferring to consider things like the 'black hole at the
end of the universe' or dark this and dark that,speculative notions
which have no meaning for the wider population and amount to comic
strip science,almost like a cartoon where the next novelty and episode
is written by consensus.It is when the 'scientific method' encounters
things closer to home like climate that the unchallenged assumptions
that work so well in astronomy ( a once noble discipline that is
currently totally dysfunctional) become unstuck and exposed,not so
much the individual assumption applied to climate but the very
'scientific method' itself.

I suppose genuine people who are interested in the technical issues
rather than the social consequences of trying to squeeze climate
through a minor atmospheric gas or the idea of the planet as a
greenhouse would be wary of venturing back in history in order to
discover what was done to allow the emergence of these modeling
agendas,first through clocks and timekeeping averages in the late 17th
century and now using computers and why normal intellectual restraints
are cast aside in order to make the means justify the ends.

Isaac Newton was following his Arian beliefs to their logical
conclusion and it helps to actually be a Christian to understand why
these influences emerge in terms of 'laws' such as the spectacular
sounding 'universal law of gravitation' but people today are unlikely
to spot the Arian sentiments in Isaac's work as compared to other
Christian scientists such as Galileo,Copernicus or Kepler.An
astronomer,I mean an astronomer who has a fair comprehension of the
method and reasoning behind the Earth's planetary dynamics as first
proposed by Copernicus, looking at what Newton attempted to do would
see an assault on the eyes yet there is not the slightest sign that
Isaac tried to disguise his idiosyncratic treatment of the great
astronomical methods and insights -

"It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and
effectually to distinguish, the true motion of particular bodies from
the apparent; because the parts of that absolute space, in which those
motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of
our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have
some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which
are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which
are the causes and effects of the true motion." Newton

In terms of planetary dynamics,that perspective is lethal even if the
statement is clear in context of his continuation of the modelling
agenda but I understood early on that most empiricists don't
understand their own system,they literally cannot tell what Newton did
and how he actually did it.The very 'laws of physics' were made up as
he went along and his followers today are those who begin with the
idea that the Earth is a greenhouse and humans control global
temperatures by using carbon dioxide levels as a temperature dial.I
would say our generation will be lucky enough to escape with a 'fool's
pardon' if it continues on the way it is doing ,not by arguing over
the climate topic but the actual 'scientific method' itself and how
one person acted stupidly (Flamsteed) and another got greedy (Newton).

Nobody actually has to go through the complicated and twisted
technical and historical details of all this even as the enormous
carbon dioxide hyperfuss has now subsided and people return to a more
stable platform of pollution control and new energy sources where the
whole thing belonged in the first place.It still leaves many questions
unanswered and that is where dealing with the 'scientific method'
itself comes in order to prevent these modelling agendas from running
amok again by those who care only about their models rather than
correct interpretation,experience and sometimes common sense.