The 16 scientists who signed the Wall Street Journal editorial are a minority, but they're not outliers. They're not "flat earthers." They're not "scared of science." They are, quite simply, distinguished scientists with a dissenting opinion.
And their opinion deserves our respect.
Following are the scientists and engineers who signed the WSJ editorial.
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris
J. Scott Armstrong, co-founder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting
Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University
Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society
Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences
William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton University
Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge
William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meterology
Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT
James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Tech University
Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences
Burt Rutan, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne
Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former US Senator
Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service
Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva
Really, what is your prolem? Where is any evidence that the science is wrong? There are a lot of points that add to the line implicating human activity to this climate change, not just one point of research. So, it should be easy for a person who claims to be a physicist to provide evidence specifically where something is incorrect.
If you are a physicist, then confront the researchers! Here's a link to New Research Shows Complexity of Global Warming that names names! So, you can contact them and confront them with their ignorance! In fact, if you search sciencedaily.com you'll find a lot of research articles that all name names! You can tell them how far out on a limb they are with their process and procedures!
Rather than bloviating here, what with all your physics knowledge, why not confront these scientists? And keep us informed with your discussions with them. To date, you've provided NOTHING to refute the science behind global warming research and that reveals something about you and your argument.
You assumed incorrectly. It was easy to prove the cold fusion theorists (chemists in over their heads) were wrong without proving cold fusion is impossible.
There are a lot of people in over their heads at the moment. It is even in the words and names. You say "global warming research" instead of climate research. You are missing half the scientific method, which you seem to hold to a rigid standard. Newton once wrote
"The best and safest method of philosophising seems to be, first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only on explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments."
Where are the experiments? Thus my previous comment about the need for a planet duplicator and a 4 billion year experiment. Climate researchers are way out on a limb when it comes to scientific method. This has to come down to insight and judgement. You can't do the experiment side of the equation.
Does it bother you that no one has ever solved the equations for turbulence, yet these researchers are modeling a turbulent atmospher and hydrosphere over very long periods of time?
You claim to be some sort of physicist and yet you say that you're puzzled about the notion that you must prove the theorists, I assume that you mean "the theory", wrong. I think that you need to discover what the scientific process is before I waste any time dealing with that notion. If you really were a physicist, then you'd have learned that in school, high school.
So, you're job is to provide evidence that global warming research has one or more errors in it. So far, they've bolstered their theory with hard data. If you don't agree, then show where they're worng with hard data.
"You're an Ayn Randian ethical egoist". Well, you got something right! Yes, I believe in the use of reason to understand the world, not magic.
"You simply don't like the potential for government control because you believe in failed free market theory and nothing more." That is certainly telling. Saving the planet is a very good excuse for collectivists to excercise control over the toiling masses. Next best thing to space invaders.
But I am still puzzled by this notion that I must prove the theorists wrong, otherwise they are right. And that by showing the size of the error bars I am a "denier". You don't even understand the kinds of problems that can lead to a proof versus a conjecture. When the Earth was at the center of the universe, Copernicus was a "denier". Newton was a "denier", quantum mechanics was a conspiracy of "deniers". The consensus was against them all. Now, I can see that a collectivist would find consensus attractive. But really, such thinking has killed hundreds of millions of people in the USSR and China with consensus ideas about agriculture and genetics instead of science and reason. Their leaders had an ideology and a plan. The modern elites and collective advocates just have an idea backed by ignorance. I think you are less dangerous. The ignorance leads to confusion when things go wrong. The idealists were not confused, they just doubled down and millions starved.
By the way, there is no media conspiracy. You don't need a conspiracy when 98% of the participants are in agreement. You should read some Feynman and marvel at clear thinking.
Then post your evidence! Enough of your blather. You deniers are all the same, claim a media conspiracy and use that as an excsue in refusing to provide explicit problems with the current research as replies to that research. How convenient!
The fact is that if the research is good, then it eventually falls apart. So, where's your proof that the science behind anthropogenic global warming is false? I don't see anything, except your opinion. When I search sciencedaily.com for "global warming" I get a list of articles, some showing the flux in the research. So, if there was a media conspiracy that you allege, this wouldn't happen.
The fact is that you simply don't like the ECONOMIC implications of our behavior having planet wide consequences. That's it. You're an Ayn Randian ethical egoist, so just admit it. You simply don't like the potential for government control because you believe in failed free market theory and nothing more.
The letters have been written, the reviews have been done by many, and a few by me. Historical tables of temperatures are not verification of some experiment prompted by a theory, especially when the measuring stations are in places that have become urban islands in the same time period as the warming data. They are just data, and may or may not show a long term trend that may or may not continue. The rate at which new information is being developed is increasing and the noise is getting worse, not better. You would expect the noise to go down roughly by the square root of the number of new sources. For example, a 50 year program of greenhouses on the tundra to measure the expected CO2 release from warming was recently terminated and found no difference. The noise went up. Piece after piece of new info is not supporting the alarmists.
The media people have chosen - what we call journalists today are 98% left-liberal and vote democrat. There is a consensus on that. The professional educators have chosen as well. There is really no need to argue with me. It is a done deal and we in the West will bankrupt ourselves "saving the planet" while the Chinese build a new coal fired electrical plant every week or two. How many people need to switch from cars to bicycles to carbon offset one Chinese plant? And does it matter?
What is your problem? Read the extant literature from the researchers. If you have problems with their findings and data then YOU can a) write to the editor of the article, (b) write to the researcher(s) with your issues, and (c) conduct your own review or research and then you publish your findings.
You obviously have never worked in either physics or the research field, so why do you bother posting?
Of course I have no theory. I want to see proof of yours. That is the whole point of this discussion, that there is no proof. I want to see causal connections, not a conjecture consensus. You respond by saying it is my responsibility to disprove the conjectures of others, something that can not even be done in some cases in science. it is as if you somewhere learned anti-science.
If all the geese that people have seen are white, prove that all geese are white. How would you go about it? Can it be done?
You have no theory! You have produced nothing to even allude to a theory! Where is ANYTHING that discusses your "theory"? No where! You haven't produced anything because all you have is your opinion, as evidenced by these endless posts presenting nothing but your opinion.
I doubt that you are or ever were a scientist from your posts and idea as to how the scientific process works. It is up to you to produce evidence for your "theory", not merely state nonsense.
jeffbliss, I understand that you don't get it. You have an upside down idea of science, where it is not the job of the person with a new theory to prove it right, but the reponsibility of everyone else to prove him wrong. I blame the accademy and the failure to maintain ideals in the face of the onslaught of political correctness. The sciences resisted for a while, but caved as new blood came into the faculties. Your's is a perfect world for junk science. You can even get rid of opponets by labeling them racist or anti-choice or ungreen heartless non-caring throwbacks. It is the Star Wars generation. Use the Force. There is consensus in the Force. Do what feels right but don't rely on reason. Reason, like language, is a white male tool for oppression. There is a consensus among Deconstructionists that this is true. In fact redefine "right" when needed. It is the world we live in now, of unpopular science rejected for political reasons. The Concerned Scientists, Engineers for social justice, Design News and all its green for green's sake the editors love so much. I'm too old to be a respected peer. I can't even speak the language correctly. I commit 'isms of one sort or another without knowing. I don't have the modern thoughtdog that guards against incorrect ideas. So, good luck with all that.
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