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Thanks. I am trying to ignore specifics and make an inductive argument about science in general to shed light on why climate science appears special (ie: most biologist claim that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, physicists say the universe has a speed limit, meteorologists say 80% chance it'll rain in 3 days etc). Normally, people just go "oh okay". AFAIKT, some 95% of climate scientists are saying "yep, the climate is projected to warm for x and y reasons" and yet many people are have been uniquely skeptical for ~50 years despite increasing consensus among people who have studied the science thousands of hours. I curious what the reason for this is.
Personally, I think the hypothesis is the expected one. Humans have added a trillion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere in 200 years, and its trivial to prove CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I'd expect something to happen, probably warming, although this need not be the case, and I don't really care either way. All I want to know is what makes climate science uniquely dubious from the highest vantage point, without specifics (mostly for practical reasons).
I haven't followed this much at all. I don't disagree with the points you made, but at a 5 minute glance it seems that the climate models are useful. Even if they weren't, skepticism in the face of an increasing consensus in a quantitative field over decades begs for an explanation.
Biology and physics are old sciences compared to climate science. And the list of amazing things we've done with biology and physics over the last 200 years is insanely long. I guess you're saying that we should give climate science the same level of veneration, even without actual results and useful predictions, because it (ostensibly) uses the same processes. But even if you pretend that climate science is conducted with the same level of impartial truth-seeking - despite the incredible political pressure behind it - that's still missing the point that science is messy and often gets things wrong. Even in biology (e.g. Lamarckism) or physics (e.g. the aether). It takes hundreds of repeated experiments and validated predictions before a true "consensus" emerges (if even then). Gathering together a consensus and skipping that first step is missing the point.
And remember, skepticism is the default position of science. It's not abnormal. Heck, we had people excitedly testing the EmDrive a few years back, which would violate conservation of momentum! We didn't collectively say "excommunicate the Conservation of Momentum Deniers!"
Regardless, I'm not saying that climate science or the models are entirely useless. Like you said, the greenhouse effect itself is pretty simple and well-understood (though it only accounts for a small portion of the warming that models predict). There's good reason to believe warming will happen. Much less reason to believe it'll be catastrophic, but that's a different topic!
We should give climate science whatever veneration it earns. AFAIKT, it has produced results and useful predictions, but this is largely immaterial to what I'm talking about.
If there was Blah Science, researched for decades by tens of thousands of smart people who overwhelmingly agree that X is true, I'd bet on X being true.
My point: most people would bet on X being true in normal circumstances. People seem to make an exception for climate science. I'm curious why people make this exception.
I'm also curious if there are any other broad fields where this pattern holds. Things surrounding nutrition come to mind. Perhaps there are many, and what I'm calling special pleading is quite common.
Climate science has made predictions that are laughably wrong, and this doesn't seem to bother the researchers. The IPCC reports have often contained an enormous range of predictions based on various conditions, and even then on at least one occassion they all missed high. Climate science is no longer an unproven science with a curious number of believers; it's a field full of failures and missed predictions excused by "oh but we know better now".
About as curious as our friend Secure Signals is when he claims some discrepancy in concentration camp numbers, I imagine.
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Psychology, sociology, criminology, economics... That's four fields with zero credibility off the top of my head. I'm sure others can add more. [EDIT] - Add whatever pedagogy or whatever they call the study of education methods itself. That one's toast too.
You should not assume science is correct because of a consensus. When that consensus starts shipping engineered solutions based off that consensus, then you can start taking them at their word. This attitude should expand to cover anything from physics to hard math if they engage with a live political issue.
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