[AMF]

HP and R13,

Honestly: let's just not discuss anomalies in AGW at all. I have never said that AGW is perfect, no one ever has. You keep talking about anomalies in the research program, and then claiming that invalidates the theory. That is entirely NOT the point, and two thousand years of philosophy says I'm right.

Once more:

If you only point out that data is imprecise, or that there are holes in a hypothesis, then you are showing nothing except that anomalies exist. You have to come up with an alternative that better explains the phenomenon in question if you want to question a theory. Otherwise, you're just showing your ignorance of how science works.

I've tried to illustrate this in the above posts with analogies to Copernicus-Newton-Einstein, but you both keep coming back to talking about anomalies in AGW, as if their existence alone threw AGW into question.

I'm not making my point well, so I'll use Will's words: "you can be skeptical about the degree of that impact, but you cannot deny it unless you present a viable (and better) alternate explanation."

EVERY THEORY IN THE UNIVERSE has anomalies. The presence of anomalies alone is irrelevant.

What IS relevant is how well a different theory accounts for those anomalies. And if a new theory can account for those anomalies, and can explain everything the old theory did and more, then it "wins" and the old theory is tossed out.

Again, two thousand years of philosophy says I'm right.

Re: "Guys, I'm just scratching the surface here!"

No, what you are doing is the same thing that those untrained in philosophy of science have always done: throwing out an entire research program based on one question about the data (not even really an anomaly) without suggesting an alternative. It's bad science. End of story.

It's the kid-dad analogy:

Kid: Dad, why is the sky blue?
Dad: Because of X.
Kid: No it's not!
Dad: ok, then what causes it to be blue?
Kid: I don't know, but it isn't X!
Dad: Well, we'll have to continue to say it's caused by X until you come up with something better.

That...is science.

QED.

AMF.

PS: As for my 'sickened' statement, what I said, in full, was: "Often, I am literally physically sickened when I see people making important decisions based on their self-interest, ideologies, or dogma, rather than facts and scientific methods. In my line of work, I see it a lot, and it puts people's lives at risk. I can't help but get angry when people make important decisions based not on facts but on what they WANT to believe."

I don't see how that is ambiguous - to wit, I get disgusted with people when they make important decisions based on what appears to be their ideologies, or dogma, or self-interest, rather than an understanding of the facts and, more importantly, scientific methods. Full stop. No interpretation of "what I really meant" is needed, or desired.