Science’s Biggest Fail

Once you understand that certain gases in the atmosphere act as a heat reservoir, then the obvious hypothesis is that trapped heat will increase if the amount of those gases increases. Since we know we're increasing some of those gases by burning fossil fuels, we expect warming.

There are only 2 ways to disprove this hypothesis. One would be to disprove the basic science of the greenhouse effect--not likely. The other would be to show that there is another climatic process that counteracts the expected warming. And to do that, you would need to create a more complicated model of the climate.

This is what scientists have done, and they haven't found any effect that fully counteracts the expected warming.

So just to be clear: computer models aren't important because they prove that global warming is happening. Warming is the base assumption. Computer models are important because they have failed to prove anything can stop it.

As for gravity, there is no analytical solution to the 3 body problem. NASA still uses numerical simulation to model the solar system--just like a climate model, but with many orders of magnitude fewer nodes and inputs. They can be so precise because their model is so simple, not because of a fundamental difference in scientific understanding.

That's not someone challenging us to be skeptical and seek out information.

That's "All vaccines bad. Ever."

"Autism, autism, autism."

"Vaccines Did Not Save Us - 2 Centuries of Statistics"

"Autism in Amish Children - 1:10000" - Hmm, this "study" doesn't really consider why the Amish community might be measured differently.

I just see lots of links to studies that were either discredited, or original opining with little objective evidence.

So, automatically? No. But some rebuttals are easier to discount than others - this is one.

"New science challenges old notion that mercury dental amalgam is safe"

Mercury dental amalgam has a long history of ostensibly safe use despite its continuous release of mercury vapor. Two key studies known as the Children’s Amalgam Trials are widely cited as evidence of safety. However, four recent reanalyses of one of these trials now suggest harm, particularly to boys with common genetic variants. These and other studies suggest that susceptibility to mercury toxicity differs among individuals based on multiple genes, not all of which have been identified. These studies further suggest that the levels of exposure to mercury vapor from dental amalgams may be unsafe for certain subpopulations. Moreover, a simple comparison of typical exposures versus regulatory safety standards suggests that many people receive unsafe exposures. Chronic mercury toxicity is especially insidious because symptoms are variable and nonspecific, diagnostic tests are often misunderstood, and treatments are speculative at best. Throughout the world, efforts are underway to phase down or eliminate the use of mercury dental amalgam.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10534-013-9700-9/f...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refrigerants

You'll notice on that list that there are numbers for the "Net 100 year GWP" which basically means how much more a particular substance could cause heating versus CO2, which has an index of 1.

You'll notice that there are a LOT of compounds on the list and numbers in excess of 100 are common, and in excess of 1000 are too. I've looked up a couple and a couple of them have non-trivial atmospheric concentrations. If something has 1/1000 the concentration of CO2 and a GWP number of 10x CO2 then it would contribute 1% as much. Over a list of about 1000 refrigerants if they all managed to be 1% (this is a stretch I know!) then you could get 10x the warming from refrigerants as from CO2.

I might argue that you've already reached the conclusion that you want to (we gotta do something), and are reasoning backwards from there (carbon emissions are the cause) yourself.

As another example, a lot of people think this project is funded by oil companies and employs professional climate deniers. http://www.surfacestations.org/ Why? Because they have the audacity to try and make sure that the temperatures gathered from weather stations aren't accidentally biased.

I personally think that's MORE important to the analysis than anything else you could do, because if the raw data's no good your conclusions are also no good. Put a bunch of crap detectors in the LHC and you can find whatever particle you want. But physicists don't do that do they?

The scientists were actually pretty clear about that particular bit of data.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtm...

I think the politicians squarely deserve the blame for that one.