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Litigation

Since the WP:OWNers of these pages seem to be sensitive to someone being WP:BOLD I thought I would ask here first. Is there some (legitimate) reason not to add something along the lines of:

In Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills Stewart Dimmock sought to prevent the educational use of An Inconvenient Truth within the UK on the grounds that schools are legally required to provide a balanced presentation of political issues. The judge in this case ruled that the global warming research presented in the film was used to make a political statement and to support a political program.

in the litigation section? I have tried to condense the summary material found at Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills and An Inconvenient Truth to make this as short as possible while still providing a reasonable overview. --GoRight (talk) 15:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an owner - does that mean you do not care for my opinion? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Dang, you didn't fall into my little "trap"!  :) (Disclaimer: That was a joke.) Sure, even as an acknowledged non-owner please feel free to weigh in here. I feel it is a fair summary. I have tried to make it as small as possible but have it be self-contained. --GoRight (talk) 17:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. In the event that you are not generally opposed to including it, but have problems with this specific wording, please feel free to propose an alternative. --GoRight (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Somehow you fail to miss some other observations of the judge: The movie "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact" and "Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that: 'Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate'". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You have my permission. Just make sure that didn't come from an advocacy group. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT 17:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

an appeal to the majority is a logical fallacy for either side of the issue

Surely there is room in the article for a simple, factual statement about logic and a logical fallacy. One should be made aware that there is an appeal to the majority being used. It does not matter which sides of the debate anyone is on, this logical fallacy still applies and is a neutral statement. Some on both sides seem to attempt to make lists of a major amount of scientists, instead of just giving evidence, facts, and data about the problem. --Joseph Prymak (talk) 07:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, pointing out the logical fallacy of an appeal to the majority in this situation is implying the majority is always wrong. Dayewalker (talk) 08:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

There is clearly no appeal to majority being used, simply an observation about majority view. This is a fairly basic difference. --BozMo talk 12:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What is consensus exactly, in this context? Surely consensus is difficult with hundreds of scientists, especially in regards to some long term climate predictions. I am amazed at how one tries to defend an appeal to the majority argument by saying it is only an observation. Wrong. It is a claim, by some, that attempts to add more truth to a claim by the sheer numbers of supporters, and not by the data, evidence, and proof. If global warming is really bad, then an appeal to the majority argument harms the argument that is proven by science based on observable data, and the conclusions are not proven by the fact of large majorities of scientists. There may be some need to appeal to very qualified authorities, but no need to appeal to the majority. What percentage would be needed? The general public, leaders, and good citizens need to have access to the data and facts, and not some appeal to a majority. Why bother stating that there is a majority of scientists if it is not relevant in any way?--Joseph Prymak (talk) 04:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. You may be out of your depth here. The word consensus is used because there are reliable sources using the word consensus which weigh more than your personal view of the word. And of course anyone is free to dispute consensus: history is littered with overturned consensus, especially when the consensus is limited as here. Here the inclusion is on the basis that the consensus is notable as a cold fact. This is the kind of cold fact which the general public needs. No implications or implicit conclusions are drawn. I think the phrase "proven by good science" is a warning sign that perhaps you need to read a little more philosophy of science? It doesn't quite work like that. Karl Popper, Thomas_Samuel_Kuhn, René Descartes, Logical positivism would be a good start. --BozMo talk 07:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

In response to Bozo: What do you mean by depth? That is a very vague and general term. Since when is a fact "cold" as opposed to hot or any other temperature? Your choice of words on this topic are far too vague. You should stick to the details of the specific argument instead of making petty personal attacks.

To sum up the argument about the logical fallacy of an appeal to the majority: It is not relevant to the argument for or against human caused global warming (and the consequences) by appealing to some percentage or "consensus" of scientists. Again, what exactly is consensus in detail? --Joseph Prymak (talk) 18:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(Begin Sarcasm) Operationally, consensus on this topic appears to be anything over 45% = overwhelming consensus in favor of the IPCC view, see for details. As for editing GW wiki pages, minority GW views are generally required to attain 99.9bar% agreement to claim consensus. (End Sarcasm) I'll let the others here give you a "real" answer. --GoRight (talk) 20:24, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Scientific Debates on IPCC Position

Propose setting up a subsection on Scientific Debates in contrast to just for/against, as follows:

In July 2008, the American Physical Society's quarterly Forum on Physics and Society began a scientific debate for and aginst the IPCC's conclusions noting:

". . .There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred. . ."

What is significant here is a formal scientific debate with articles both pro/con in the publications of a major scientific association. This is likely the first of more to come.DLH (talk) 22:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Haven't we been through this? The "anti" side was Monckton; thats not the start of a sci debate, but a poor joke William M. Connolley (talk) 07:20, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

No we have not, and your response is a logically invalid basis for dismissing it. Do you realize that the Editor invited Monckton to submit the paper "Climate Sensitivity Revisited"? Have you read it? Do you understand it? Can you scientifically critique its strengths and weaknesses? Monckton's extraction of the parameters on climate sensitivity and the thinness of the support for those key parameters is likely to cause deeper examination of those foundations of the IPCC's case. This may be Monckton's enduring scientific legacy. Furthermore, do you realize that Monckton's paper was peer reviewed? Do you realize that the APS has violated its own ethics standards by claiming that it was NOT peer reviewed. See Monckton's letter demanding redress, accountability and an apology with discussion at: American Physical Society and Monckton at odds over paper. This is likely to provide ongoing response in the next issue and thus continue the debate, and thus justifies the separate category.DLH (talk) 05:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

M's enduring sci legacy will be to be ignored. The rest looks like std M trubble making and legal threats. Where does it say it was PR? Where does it say it was not? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You're letting on that you've not even skimmed Monckton's paper. The claim that it was not peer reviewed is highlighted in red right above the paper on the APS website. Monckton is demanding an apology and correction and his letter to the APS president can be found here. If Monckton's not flat out lying about the process he went through, the APS seems to have egg on its face. TMLutas (talk) 18:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. So we have APS saying it wasn't PR, and Monckton saying it was. Even Moncktons bio admits to porkies, so I don't think I'll be trusting his unsupported word. In return, I offer you , and http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/ William M. Connolley (talk) 21:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and this is not a PR by anyone competent in the subject William M. Connolley (talk) 21:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it regarding the edits and peer review. But since the APS supposedly hasn't peer reviewed anything in that publication and only Monckton's stuff seems to have gotten the red letter treatment there does seem to be a bias issue still. TMLutas (talk) 17:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I would expect that the reason for both the red-letters and the response on APS's frontpage came because various media and blogs completely failed to understand the issue - and conflated the APS position with an editor's position and the article with a peer-reviewed paper. Had this been the case with others - then they probably would have received the same treatment. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The whole point was to kick off a discussion by first presenting two sides of the argument, regardless of the merits, and then inviting people send in their scientific papers that will argue in favor/against the two positions. This is how you can measure the scientific consensus. Only the latter papers will undergo the usual rigorous scientific peer review. The two initial papers that will kick off the discussion won't be reviewed for the scientific positions they take as that would defeat the whole point of this exercise. But I guess they were reviewed to make sure they are well written, present the points they make in a clear way etc. etc.

So, we'll have to wait until the process comes to an end and then count how many accepted papers support Moncton's position. Count Iblis (talk) 13:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Starting with two papers presented without consideration of merit is a way to generate media controversy and magazine circulation but not scientific debate William M. Connolley (talk) 15:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but then the scientific debate is already pretty much settled. This could be a way to settle the public controversy, but I guess that the sceptics will just complain about the procedures when they lose (they already are complaining, it seems). Count Iblis (talk) 21:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The science is not settled and will not be settled until IPCC scientists turn over all of their data, methods, results and code. Skeptical scientists will remain skeptical until they see the proof. The fact these items have not been shared and FOI requests have been denied makes it look like the IPCC scientists are hiding something. I just added a new criticism section to the article on the IPCC. The New York University Law School blog says the IPCC has failed to uphold standards of global administrative law because of the lack of transparency. See the IPCC Talk page. RonCram (talk) 14:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

You're talking about the science becoming settled in the minds of the hard core sceptics. But they can't be convinced by scientific arguments. Presumably we'll have to wait until CO_2 levels increase by a factor of 8 and global temperatures increase by 10 °C, turning most regions of the Earth into a desert wasteland. Some people can only be convinced when directly confronted with the hard facts.... Count Iblis (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

RonCram, the IPCC has no data of their own. They summarize what has been published in scientific journals and agree on a joint conclusions from the published data. As such, your demands are simply a testimony of not having an idea how either the IPCC or science in general works, and, for that matter, of never having actually looked into the IPCC reports, since they have the references in there. The New Yoek University Law School is about as relevant here as the plumber next door, since the IPCC is addressing issues of science. The mere fact that their folks lack the qualifications to read a scientific journal paper in a pertinent field doesn't constitute a "lack of transparency" any more than they can accuse Erwin Schrödinger of a lack of transparency because they can't graps his equations. --OliverH (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The Cabal rides again

• Murphy's blog complaining that The Cabal is maintaining a bad page.
• This looks to me like Peiser actually admitting to being rather off the mark.

--Slashme (talk) 09:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Dispute not Controversy

Surely this article should have the title of 'Global Warming Dispute'. The opening lines state that the 'global warming controversy is a dispute'. Should it not be the other way round? The global warming dispute contains many controversies.

Bob Bobman999 (talk) 22:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Bob, certainly many different points are being disputed. But I am not certain the definitions you suggest for dispute and controversy are correct. Dictionary.com defines controversy as "a prolonged public dispute." I think current usage is correct. RonCram (talk) 00:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Global Warming: Experts’ Opinions versus Scientific Forecasts -NCPA" :
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308/st308b.html|title=Scientific forecasting versus opinion |accessdate=2008-04-19 |last=Green |first=Kesten |coauthors=J. Scott Armstrong |date=2008-2 |work= |publisher=National Center for Policy Analysis}}
  • {{cite web |url=http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st308/|title=Global Warming: Experts’ Opinions versus Scientific Forecasts - NCPA |accessdate=2008-04-11 |last=Green |first=Kesten |coauthors=J. Scott Armstrong |date=2008-2 |work= |publisher=National Center for Policy Analysis}}

DumZiBoT (talk) 17:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

New entry on peer-reviewed paper by Demetris Koutsoyiannis

A recent peer-reviewed article has assessed the reliability of computer-modelled climate predictions by comparing them to historical time series. The authors concluded "At the annual and the climatic (30-year) scales, GCM interpolated series are irrelevant to reality." ] The paper is titled "On the credibility of climate predictions."RonCram (talk) 00:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Local/Regional != global --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Kim, did you bother to read any of the paper? The abstract? The conclusion? Contrary to your statement, the authors are using regional data to assess global models. They are not assessing regional models. The authors specifically state the AR4 models do not perform any better than the TAR models. They also write "An argument that the poor performance applies merely to the point basis of our comparison, whereas aggregation at large spatial scales would show that GCM outputs are credible, is an unproved conjecture and, in our opinion, a false one." This article is about the controversy. Such an unproven argument is hardly a reason to keep Misplaced Pages readers in the dark about this paper. This article certainly addresses the controversy, is relevant and has completed the peer-review process. I'm restoring the entry. RonCram (talk) 13:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have read the paper and I agree with you that global is not the issue here. The paper is peer reviewed and probably should go in to this article, since I think it just about makes WP:UNDUE and is relevant. The problem with the paper is that it tries to score silly points about hydrologists versus climate scientists. I find that rather puerile. It went through only a fast track review in a hydrology journal. The credible thing to do would have been to fight it out and get it into a climate journal and then the peer review bit might have had more teeth. There are also issues about what models really are but that's my OR. So my view is list here and wait for reaction before it gets anywhere else. --BozMo talk 13:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

1. "Stuart Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education & Skills EWHC 2288". 2007-10-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
2. The Editor (JJM) (2008). "Editors Comments, Forum on Physics and Society, APS, July 2008". {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
3. David Hafemeister & Peter Schwartz (2008). "A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change". Forum on Physics and Society, American Physical Society. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
4. Christopher Monckton (2008). "Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered". Forum on Physics and Society, American Physical Society. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

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